It is said that the Giant Squid is friends with Nessy, the Loch Ness Monster; is this true?

Thank you
Anonymous the Pirate

Anonymous,

No, that is not at all true. I do not now know, nor have I ever known of, the "Nessy," nor yet still have I ever been a friend of any manner to her. Further, I would choose to take but this moment to make salient and particular to you the manner of injustice that such flagrant and unsupported rumor-mongering, rumor-forging and rumor-breeding as this. I would expect a thief of mercy such as yourself to show far greater care in regard to what manner of psycho-emotional duress his utterances and claims might cause, and can but only imagine the crestfallen, head-beshakén and heartbroken yarrs and shiver McTimberses of the rest of your brokeback brotherhood of pirates, as they themselves suffer the shame and indignity brought upon them by such a social faux pas as this.

For shame, Anonymous. If this is the manner by which you generally comport yourself, it is of little surprise to me that your piratey brothers have chosen to abscond with even your name, so that you might do less harm, although their theft ironically also insulates you well from the hexes of witches—your brothers are doubtless thieves of mercy indeed to look for your safety even as they issue their rebuke. Do you vex wyrd sisters in the manners and modes that you vex me?

While you mayst be safe from the wrath of the witch-sisters, for you have no name to be named with, be most assured that the same statement does not hold true for this one. I need no names to call forth my wrath, for I have logged your Ineternets Protocols address, churlish knave. In this misty-magickal realm of the internets, an Ineternets Protocols address is more useful than a name, for it is in fact your true name you demon of the seas, and through it I have power over you.

These rumors, though, are persistent, and founded only in the most doggéd misinterpretation of data. Were we of occasion seen to be in the same locale? It is to be certain! As fellow denizens of the deep, we did travel in similar circles, similar currents. Also, we did attend the same workshop of les Techniques d' Ars Ceramica, and if we might pass some time in idyl chat while awaiting Mrs. Robrecht to come and aid us in centering our clay upon the wheels of throwing, what of that? Our stations were directly adjacent—we both being a bit overlarge for the accessibility-limited double doors of the classroom, and thus obliged to work in the garage adjacent to the studio proper. Also, that Nessy might have been espied on more than a single occasion wearing my jacket is simply a matter of the fact that I did loan it to her on a given chill afternoon, and she persisted in wearing the jacket—despite my gentle objections!—for several weeks with the defense (which I eventually began to suspect was fraudulent) that her own jacket was at the dry cleaners, who had promised to remove a certain smear of benthic ooze from around the hem, only to smear it much worse and more notably, thus obliging themselves to offer a full,deep-penetrating martinizing service, in addition to their usual laundry treatments. This at no additional fee to Nessy, although I did ultimately become somewhat uncomfortable with her perpetual residence in my coat—especially as it grew colder over the following weeks—and I had no other for which to wear.

As for the musical recital of Kid Rock—and I have explained this on so many occasions that both the tale and the telling has become entirely devoid of the humor for me—it so happened that Nessy had a pair of certificates of entry to the event won from a chance mis-dialed number to a local radio re-broadcaster of the Clear Channel Monopoly (she was attempting to dial her sister, but transposed two digits), and but the single herself to go, and so we decided to travel together. That Marshal-Eminem-Mathers-the-Triple-Eye a.k.a. "The Eight Mile Rabbit" was there was but a happy co-incidence, and we passed a pleasant half-of-the-hour. As you can see, the event was truly in a manner entirely innocent, but when the murmursome, rumorous Whispering Class—first and foremost that traitorous, treasonous Eight Mile Rabbit himself, so eager to be the big man with his humorous tales that he must raise Nessy and myself as freakish objects of ridicule and scorn—when this class of meddlesome wags does get any single nugget or morsel of information into their insatiable craw—no matter how stony and devoid of nourishing substance—they do chew and chew until they have found some scrap of gristle to fill their noisome, hateful guts.

Also, "Monster" strikes me as a bit extreme in characterizing Nessy. To be entirely french in the matter, I will go further and say that "Loch Ness Monster" is a startlingly unfair—even quite crass—description of Nessy. Is she fair? No, not the bit. Are her eyes large and lustrous? Not hardly; they are over-small, and too near one to the other, round and protuberant and rheumy. Similarly, her figure is lumpcious and slumped, rather than lithe and languid, and far from pleasing to the eye. Nonetheless, she is far from monstrous. For example, she has never trudged stompingly through an asiatic metropolis, setting fire to buildings and omnibi with her flaming breath, nor transformed into mist or bat or horse and sucked of the bloods of the necks of the winsome ladies of the night, nor even killed 25 million of her own Ukrainian countrymen, countrywomen and countrykinder via the expedient of mass starvation. Also she was quick of wit and humorous of tone, arch and ironical in her observations of the world and a steadfast comrade, ever offering a shoulder to cry upon for a shoulderless and loveless friend.

That at the Promenade Dance, when she did arrive in a gown of her own handcrafting and, despite how finely wrought it was, she was subject to the mocksome scorn of her wealthier peers, I failed to swim forward and object to her abuse is truly a reflection only of my own monstrous callowness. It shames me to the very core that I did chortle along so jocularly with the other bow-be-tiéd and tuxedoéd boors, and did fail to come to her aid or offer succor, either in the moment or later, and in that moment did deny knowing her no fewer than three times, a Doubting Peter in her Mary Martyrdom.

Truth be told, in my lonely evenings, as I crouch in my velocitator in the gardening shed aside Hazel's mobile home—eves when, despite my vast richness of friends in the moment, I am nonetheless gripped in the solitary nostalgia of the cool and moon-luminous surface night—I do wonder about Nessy, and in my heart regret the loss of the times of our togetherness. Perhaps, Pirate Without a Name, as you do sail the many seas, perhaps if you are to see Nessy, might you pass to her my kind regards, and then communicate back towards me some hint of where this world, oft so cruel, has taken her? Perhaps more, if you were to voice some hint of a shred of my apologetic regret . . . well, if that were to happen, if you were to say such a thing, I certainly would not choose to rend you limb from limb when we might later meet.

I Remain Regretfully,
Your Giant Squid