Dorky’s Day Dream
By Douglas Dorkheimer the Second
Dorky (we called him Dorky in those days). He would, now and then, tell anyone who listened a story so quaint and curious it invariably drew embarrassed laughter all around ifi km pdzz a and the shaking of heads in disbelief. Magic island, my foot, you could see them thinking. And fairies and royalty, right! But on each occasion Dorky gave his account with such innocent enthusiasm and with such irreproachable, precise repetition that listeners sensed a new range of (how should I put it) possibilities within the workings of nature. Their senses underwent a widening of sorts in all but the most callous (or impaired among them), an expansion of mind that left each of them slightly less certain of the rules that govern nature and spirit in this world. And this is the story he told, introducing it with the assertion that you could set your clock by every detail in it, all of it one hundred and one percent true. (Reader, I regret that my rudimentary Italian limits the accuracy of my account. But, as Holmes himself often said about his own imprecision, “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.” Damned wise that.)
“You would have had to be there,” Dorky would always continue, “as I was, having stowed away on the Argyle at Carthage bound for Italy and home. Within three days of departure, favoured by a pleasant, strong sou’wester, we ran with little warning into a change of weather so fierce and so precipitous we quickly lost all our rigging. Left with no choice in the matter, we flew before the winds to parts of the darkening seas known to no one.”
Anyone with half an imagination would have left his warm seat at the fireside to hear such a tale. Stormy crossings of the sea and shipwreck on an island with great loss of life and luggage appeal universally to men. Who would not stop whatever he was doing to find out if anyone survived and what they got up to on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, unmarked on any maps known to man? So inevitably, half a dozen of us layabouts migrated to Dorky’s side to hear him tell it again. Always the tale struck us as newly minted, as something just now reported by a returning sailor. Or as if the tale, like blue jeans fresh out of the laundry, had undergone a sea change in Dorky’s mind and taken on wonderful and before unconsidered layers of mystery and meaning.
“The Argyle slewed and wallowed before the gale,” Dorky started, his voice a hoarse whisper, eyes fear-widened, “its masts down and overboard and its sails and rigging long since swept tangled and torn out to sea. The captain, a man of great valour, courageous to a fault, worked in vain to pilot his crippled vessel, calling all the while for the dejected sailors to take courage, calls lost in the demonic howling of the storm.” At each moment Dorky’s hands moved about in imitation of the good captains’ on the ship’s wheel and his features showed wildly the horror of the coming destruction.
“Oh! The confusion and terror among them all!” Dorky called, his head shaking in fruitless denial. “And, oh! The wild eyes and desperate prayers of the passengers! You must know that, to make matters worse, aboard this vessel we carried the king of Italy himself (for whose safety the crew felt deeply, fearfully responsible) as well as his retinue of both members of the royal family and acquaintances.
The storm grew steadily more savage so that the furious waves rose high above us and then fell with such a vicious weight upon the decks that before long our great ship broke deep and began to take on water. In terror sailors leapt over the rail, only to be immediately swept from our sight. In vain did our good captain implore us to remain steadfast and keep to our posts but none heard him above the roaring of sea and gale.
“And so it was that when the ship began to come apart the men all gave themselves to the embrace of the waves and the mercy of their maker. No one of them knew of the fate of the others, each grieving in his heart the loss of all the rest to their graves.
“But wonders befell this their world now (and I advise patience to you, my good readers, for I shall make all plain in good time). Finding himself with great good luck a few arm strokes from a ship’s mast the king swam to it and, grasping it in tired arms, gave himself up in despair to the water, wherever it might take him. And he was not the only one for whom flotsam provided a temporary salvation. I, too, Dorky Briggs Columbiner, almost at the end of my strength, found a shocking refuge that arrived not from heaven above but from the dark chaotic depths below. Facing down into the water, in the very act of giving myself over to it, I beheld, to my utter astonishment, a smoky and ghostly shape rising up towards me! Oh! My heart! The apparition began to clarify and suddenly i saw it to be an upturned face with its eyes starting from their sockets and its visage wild and fierce fixed on mine. And I knew the angel of death had come to claim me.
Then, to my amazement, I recognized the face of Quebecette, my good companion! His head broke the surface next to mine. We stared open-mouthed at each other. What else could possibly still happen? Surely, these little miracles threatened us! They must mean us some harm. They must mean the coming of…of… of a disaster greater even than the loss of the Argyle! Or else, maybe, just maybe (much less likely though more desirable) they presaged some wonderful thing still before us for which our miserable selves were being preserved.
This man, this fine friend, this Labin Lois Quebecette and I had initially distrusted each other. But that enmity soon diminished during the early days of our voyage. Within a week we’d found ourselves captive to friendship, bound together in a profoundness that even catastrophe could not hope to diminish. And then disaster had accomplished precisely such a split! This tempest had ripped us apart and left us with nothing but the hope for a quick death.
By Douglas Dorkheimer the Second
Dorky (we called him Dorky in those days). He would, now and then, tell anyone who listened a story so quaint and curious it invariably drew embarrassed laughter all around ifi km pdzz a and the shaking of heads in disbelief. Magic island, my foot, you could see them thinking. And fairies and royalty, right! But on each occasion Dorky gave his account with such innocent enthusiasm and with such irreproachable, precise repetition that listeners sensed a new range of (how should I put it) possibilities within the workings of nature. Their senses underwent a widening of sorts in all but the most callous (or impaired among them), an expansion of mind that left each of them slightly less certain of the rules that govern nature and spirit in this world. And this is the story he told, introducing it with the assertion that you could set your clock by every detail in it, all of it one hundred and one percent true. (Reader, I regret that my rudimentary Italian limits the accuracy of my account. But, as Holmes himself often said about his own imprecision, “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.” Damned wise that.)
“You would have had to be there,” Dorky would always continue, “as I was, having stowed away on the Argyle at Carthage bound for Italy and home. Within three days of departure, favoured by a pleasant, strong sou’wester, we ran with little warning into a change of weather so fierce and so precipitous we quickly lost all our rigging. Left with no choice in the matter, we flew before the winds to parts of the darkening seas known to no one.”
Anyone with half an imagination would have left his warm seat at the fireside to hear such a tale. Stormy crossings of the sea and shipwreck on an island with great loss of life and luggage appeal universally to men. Who would not stop whatever he was doing to find out if anyone survived and what they got up to on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, unmarked on any maps known to man? So inevitably, half a dozen of us layabouts migrated to Dorky’s side to hear him tell it again. Always the tale struck us as newly minted, as something just now reported by a returning sailor. Or as if the tale, like blue jeans fresh out of the laundry, had undergone a sea change in Dorky’s mind and taken on wonderful and before unconsidered layers of mystery and meaning.
“The Argyle slewed and wallowed before the gale,” Dorky started, his voice a hoarse whisper, eyes fear-widened, “its masts down and overboard and its sails and rigging long since swept tangled and torn out to sea. The captain, a man of great valour, courageous to a fault, worked in vain to pilot his crippled vessel, calling all the while for the dejected sailors to take courage, calls lost in the demonic howling of the storm.” At each moment Dorky’s hands moved about in imitation of the good captains’ on the ship’s wheel and his features showed wildly the horror of the coming destruction.
“Oh! The confusion and terror among them all!” Dorky called, his head shaking in fruitless denial. “And, oh! The wild eyes and desperate prayers of the passengers! You must know that, to make matters worse, aboard this vessel we carried the king of Italy himself (for whose safety the crew felt deeply, fearfully responsible) as well as his retinue of both members of the royal family and acquaintances.
The storm grew steadily more savage so that the furious waves rose high above us and then fell with such a vicious weight upon the decks that before long our great ship broke deep and began to take on water. In terror sailors leapt over the rail, only to be immediately swept from our sight. In vain did our good captain implore us to remain steadfast and keep to our posts but none heard him above the roaring of sea and gale.
“And so it was that when the ship began to come apart the men all gave themselves to the embrace of the waves and the mercy of their maker. No one of them knew of the fate of the others, each grieving in his heart the loss of all the rest to their graves.
“But wonders befell this their world now (and I advise patience to you, my good readers, for I shall make all plain in good time). Finding himself with great good luck a few arm strokes from a ship’s mast the king swam to it and, grasping it in tired arms, gave himself up in despair to the water, wherever it might take him. And he was not the only one for whom flotsam provided a temporary salvation. I, too, Dorky Briggs Columbiner, almost at the end of my strength, found a shocking refuge that arrived not from heaven above but from the dark chaotic depths below. Facing down into the water, in the very act of giving myself over to it, I beheld, to my utter astonishment, a smoky and ghostly shape rising up towards me! Oh! My heart! The apparition began to clarify and suddenly i saw it to be an upturned face with its eyes starting from their sockets and its visage wild and fierce fixed on mine. And I knew the angel of death had come to claim me.
Then, to my amazement, I recognized the face of Quebecette, my good companion! His head broke the surface next to mine. We stared open-mouthed at each other. What else could possibly still happen? Surely, these little miracles threatened us! They must mean us some harm. They must mean the coming of…of… of a disaster greater even than the loss of the Argyle! Or else, maybe, just maybe (much less likely though more desirable) they presaged some wonderful thing still before us for which our miserable selves were being preserved.
This man, this fine friend, this Labin Lois Quebecette and I had initially distrusted each other. But that enmity soon diminished during the early days of our voyage. Within a week we’d found ourselves captive to friendship, bound together in a profoundness that even catastrophe could not hope to diminish. And then disaster had accomplished precisely such a split! This tempest had ripped us apart and left us with nothing but the hope for a quick death.
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