the mariners revenge

we are two mariners, our ships' sole survivors, in this belly of a whale. its ribs our ceiling beams, its guts our carpeting; i guess we have some time to kill.

you may not remember me - i was a child of three and you, a lad of eighteen - but I remember you, and I will relate to you how our histories interweave.

at the time you were a rake and a roustabout, spending all your money on the whores and hounds. oh ohhhhh you had a charming air, all cheap and debonair, my widowed mother found so sweet. and so she took you in, her sheets still warm with him - now filled with filth and foul disease.

as time wore on you proved a debt-ridden drunken mess, leaving my mother a poor
consumptive wretch. oh ohhhhh and then you disappeared, your gambling arrears the only thing you left behind. and then the magistrate reclaimed our small estate and my poor mother lost her mind.

then one day, in spring my dear sweet mother died but before she did I took her hand as she, dying, cried: "Oh Ohhhhh. find him, bind him. tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters. drag him to a hole until he wakes up, naked, clawing at the ceiling of his grave. *sigh*"

it took me fifteen years to swallow all my tears among the urchins in the street. until a friary took pity and hired me to keep their vestry nice and neat. but never once in the employ of these holy men did I ever, once, turn my mind from the thought of revenge. Oh Ohhhhh

one night I overheard the friar exchanging words with a penitent whaler from the sea.
the captain of his ship, who matched you toe to tip, was known for a wanton cruelty.
the following day I shipped to sea with a privateer and in the whistle of the wind I could almost hear... "Oh Ohhhhh. find him, bind him. tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters. drag him to a hole until he wakes up, naked, clawing at the ceiling of his grave. there is one thing I must say to you as you sail across the sea. always, your mother will watch over you as you avenge this wicked deed"

and then that fateful night, we had you in our sight after twenty months at sea. your starboard flank abeam, i was getting my muskets clean when came this rumbling from beneath.
the ocean shook, the sky went black and the captain quailed. and before us grew the angry jaws of a giant whale. oh ohhhhhhhhhh

don't know how I survived, the crew all was chewed alive - I must have slipped between his teeth. but, oh! what providence! what divine intelligence! that you should survive as well as me. it gives my heart great joy to see your eyes fill with fear; so lean in close and I will whisper the last words you'll hear.

Ohh Ohhhhh