Colleen (515 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.68 on 26 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Ballare (View user info) at 2008-05-09 01:19:03 EDT
"I'll tell it as I best know how," the sailor said, leaning in close, his whiskered face rough and creased from wind and water, swept and darkly tanned and cratered with age, "for that's the way it was told to me. She must've been a thief or a whore, and surely thrown overboard, where, they say, she came this way from the deep blue sea."
And that was how he began. His deep, great voice filled the room, the words running together to paint an endless, vivid image - his very words crafting the immense eternal ocean, booming hard against the jagged, bare rocks of the grey coast.
There was the broken form of a barefooted body, draped across the sand, placed so carefully there by the caressing waves. White rags wrapped about the form, remnants of a torn gown - and the figure still, motionless.
She was dead.
And she awoke, harshly coughing salted water from her lungs, feeling the chill of the cold and clutching her hands at the fine, white sands. The pounding of the surf filled the air around her, the icy mists creeping at her feet.
It seemed she had been run a-ground.
So they found her, serene and still, staring at the sea.
They took her by hand and her back to the village where she was cooed over by the many women, who shod her feet and cupped her face and stroked her white silk skin. They taught her soft voice to speak the words and prayers of chastity, and her hands to hold the sickle, and her eyes to recognize the useful herbs of the earth.
They touched her hair and said her name would be Colleen, and she was blessed among the women to have forgotten everything.
As the weeks and months arose and fell, she tried to put herself to use.
But no matter how she ploughed or planted, knelt in the dark soils and submerged her hands in the loam, it seemed no root, nor leaf, nor flower, nor bean, would produce.
Lord! it seemed she over-watered everything.
And, standing in that wide empty field, the great vast sky moving above her, she would flinch and shy, trapped between that fixed horizon.
Oh!, she hated the sight of that empty air, as though she were to tumble and fall forth ever-blindly, ah! cannot grab hold of anything.
No. Oh, no, not she, most blessed of Colleens.
Some nights she would dream of the echo of the yawning sea, softly weeping for her pitifully, and she would reach and cry and dive through this thickening fog, seeking to embrace her child -
And wake, with an emptiness inside her.
But last night came a different dream: a grey and sloping-shouldered thing. It sang to her, resonant voice lifting and falling in terrific and terrible wails, and one great wide eye slowly closed as it spoke,
"What is cinched 'round your waist, Colleen? Can it be my very own baleen? No!"
And as she sat upright, darkness enclosing and holding her, sweetly pressing her back towards sleep,
"Have you forgotten everything...?"
That morning with a great rattle and clink the traders came to town, bringing with them the most pleasant and sad songs, and a number of trinkets and toys, and, most prized of all, a water-stained and leather-bound book of pictures.
And amidst the hoary mermaids and many-limbed sea monsters, it held a whale with a tusk a meter long, and to this Colleen pointed,
"What is the name of this strange beast?"
The trader's dark smile replied,
"Its name translates roughly to He Who Easily Can Curve Himself Against The Sky,"
And she is without words, but her fingers trace the long ivory tusk with a lover's caress. A roughened hand covers her own, and there is hot breath in her ear as the furtive trader whispers,
"You look perturbed, my lady. The light is in your eyes, Colleen."
"Whatever can you mean?"
"Y'ain't forgotten everything."
Oh!
She draws herself in tight, and with a sharp glance to the dark man, spits,
"You dare to speak a lady's name?"
"Oh, no, not I," his toothless grin flashes golden, "I would not speak your name. If I were to try - why - the wind would rise and tear you clean from this place!"
"Have you come, then, to rescue me?"
His rasping laugh caught her up, and he shook his head knowingly,
"From what? I'll say you dried and dressed most willingly, Colleen."
And to this, she retorted,
"Well, it's true I came to know such things, such the herbs to feed the babes that wean, the welting weight for every season, the proper stitch to darn the frayed, but still, I don't know any goddamned Colleen!"
"Aaaah," he sighed, "then dive to where the lights lead; where they seem to shine from everything; down to the bottom of the deep blue sea - down to where your heart beats so slowly against your skin and you will never in your life have felt so free! Will you come down there with me? Down to where our bodies will start to seem like strange relics, bizarre artifacts, which afterwards you will be unable to decipher...
And, so soon, forget everything."
User Reviews
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2008-05-11 13:02:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2008-05-10 20:34:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Phallic_Cymbals (user info) at 2008-05-10 09:46:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Where is the new boobs of uber btw?
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2008-05-09 17:53:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DudeThatsBOSH (user info) at 2008-05-09 16:08:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i am pretty sure i'm dreaming right now
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-05-09 15:44:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
um, yes.
Submitted by Hookhand (user info) at 2008-05-09 15:31:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Did you write this?
Submitted by Rhymenocerous (user info) at 2008-05-09 11:10:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-05-09 11:07:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
it's cool, I do that with the Reader's Digest, too
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-09 10:55:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Like a 'true story' in Readers Digest, I read half of it and then got bored and skipped to the joke page.
Sorry. Narwhals are cool though.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2008-05-09 10:25:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-05-09 01:24:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Ugh that link is terrible quality, here's a better one if anyone cares: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enmj-fK9niY
And the lyrics, which I heavily based this on:
http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Joanna-Newsom/Colleen.html
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Interesting...
I kept thinking about http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Ted-Leo-And-The-Pharmacists/Colleen.html while I was reading this.
Submitted by GangsterSquid (user info) at 2008-05-09 10:16:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.gabbly.com/www.ubersite.com
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-05-09 09:03:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-05-09 09:01:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"submerged her hands in the loam"
I enjoy that feeling. Good story.
Submitted by Phallic_Cymbals (user info) at 2008-05-09 07:32:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
:D
Submitted by Phallic_Cymbals (user info) at 2008-05-09 07:32:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
My grandpa once said had sex with a mermaid that was half fish, half woman.
The weird thing is, he said she was fish on the outside and woman on the inside.
I never did understand my grandpa.
Submitted by CarterPFly (user info) at 2008-05-09 06:25:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
really enjoyed that.
Submitted by BeforeEmily (user info) at 2008-05-09 04:43:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+ 2 Narwhal
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2008-05-09 03:33:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2008-05-09 02:34:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-05-09 01:25:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
steak, narwhals are SO much more badass than zombies.
I mean, they have UNICORN HORNS
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When I kill a narwhal, it stays dead. Zombies, despite lacking unicorn horns, are more deadly than narwhals, as if I kill a zombie, it gets back up.
If a narwhal kills someone, the person is dead, still attached to the unicorn horn, so that horn is really only good for about twelve kills. If a zombie kills something, it adds another zombie to the horde, and they never stop.
As far as annoyance is concerned, unicorns have either one of Charlie's unnamed friends, and zombies have Stubbs. I think we all know the clear winner on this one.
More zombie porn than narwhal porn. I'm pretty sure that's a point for narwhals, but if you're into it, good luck finding much, so the point goes to zombies.
How many great movies feature narwhals, as opposed to zombies. Night of the Living Narwhals? I think not.
Narwhals are terrified of everything, and only attack when provoked. Zombies are fearless, and never stop attacking.
Which would scare you more?
http://bishop-art.com/images/letters/n_narwhal.jpg
or
http://www.zombiefriends.com/image/1318/gallery/Profile_Clown.jpg
You can't possibly outweigh the evidence that zombies are way more badass than narwhals.
Submitted by Charlton_H (user info) at 2008-05-09 02:10:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I want to fuck your tits.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2008-05-09 01:49:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nearly every line in this thing is dripping with sex.
Intentional or subconscious, I wonder.
Or is it just me?
No need to answer. It's rhetorical.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-05-09 01:25:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
steak, narwhals are SO much more badass than zombies.
I mean, they have UNICORN HORNS
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-05-09 01:24:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Ugh that link is terrible quality, here's a better one if anyone cares: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enmj-fK9niY
And the lyrics, which I heavily based this on:
http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Joanna-Newsom/Colleen.html
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2008-05-09 01:23:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I thought this was going to be about zombies.
:(
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-05-09 01:20:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga13dRiebcc