Category: Prose

Averil smiled broadly, his old weather-worn face glowed with happiness from beneath his fisherman’s hat as he looked from his barrel seat in front of the day’s catch at a boy of about nine years. The boy was dressed in cut-off kaki shorts and dirty white shirt with its baggy sleaves rolled up tight. He was carrying a fishing pole far too tall for him just as though it was perfectly natural, “Dad, why do they call them the moaning reefs?”

The two sat at the end of a lake pier with two small crates filled with fish and some kind of tentacled squid catch as Averil shared his story, “That’s a scary story, son, about a great sea monster who turned out to be nothing of the sort.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was the second time in my life where I had an encounter with one the greatest creatures in all Huan’hai, called a Gonago’lai. I didn’t know at the time that she would turn out to be one of our greatest friends because both times that I ran into her I thought I’d never see land again.”

“Wow, dad. What happened?”

“Well, I was taking that very fishing boat around the reefs when all of the sudden beneath the waves I saw this pattern that looks like that cobblestone road over there only blue and deep underwater- and it was moving. That’s when I heard it. The long, low sounds of the whole bay moaning – everywhere at once! The boat started to toss and water parted in every direction as the bottom rose up to the surface until something hit the bottom of my boat hard.”

“What next? Did it eat you?”

Averil laughed, “I certainly hope not or you would’ve never been born!”

“Oh, yeah. Right!” The little boy laughed sheepishly.

“Well, what did happen next was the strangest thing ever at sea. Without warning fog rose up and swirled around me and I felt something in my head vibrating loud, like my own bones were shaking. Just then I saw in the mists the most beautiful maiden, second of course to your mommy, walking toward me. All around her there were images of people and places here, in sky, even deep below the sea appearing and vanishing all at once. Then. Nothing. All I remember was alien words, like a song, of that woman in my head before I passed out. Much later, I woke on the wet deck of my boat, sea-weed in my mouth.”

“Eww!”

“Well, I had run aground right at the delta of the river and found out later that it had been three days!”

“How did I get that ol’ girl?” A black bearded fisherman scratches his grizzled chin and looks up, trying to remember. One wrinkled eye winces and winks closed as he leans back against the pier post and crosses a leg before smiling as the memory comes to him.

“So long ago, I almost forgot. This relic behind me,” he points to a small fishing boat that slowly bobs and sways with the gentle ripples in of the lake Pajong Gai. “I had to ferry her down the river at the other end of the lake. Won her on a dare. The man who bet me had no idea that I’d already served in a merchant fleet off the coast of Crashton. Now there be waves and storms the likes of which this ol’ gal is glad to be rid of. Her previous owner, one Fezzle Drafton, dared me to take her out to the Moaning Reefs, out past the furthest edge of the trade routes that travelled all along the shores and even up the river to this lake. I guess the thing was, he was so annoyed with the way the engine sputtered and chugged the water that he was glad to be rid of her if only he could’ve found someone knew how take her out to sea and prove themselves worthy a captain. Of course, he half said it in jest on account of the fact he was covered head to toe in oil from his last miserable attempt to get the girl in working order. I had made some off hand remark about his land-lovin’ ways and that was that. He challenged me. I accepted. But the real tale is how I got all the way to the reefs edge and learned the reason it was called the Moaning Reefs.”