All At Sea

When the sphinx awoke, before she had opened her eyes, she felt the wind on her face, smelt the salt in that wind and heard the water roaring around her with the influence of the wind. On a ship then, all at sea.

She rose to her four feet and looked out across the waves. She looked out. Looking out, she saw, and there upon the waves when she looked out, she saw it. She knew it was not a horse or any heavy machine and yet she knew it. She swam towards it. She stayed quite still.

I shall stay here and see what it does, thought the sphinx, all my gathered wisdoms cannot help me in this place. All the sense has left the world and we are adrift. If there was another sphinx near me now, I would ask if I could hold paws for a little comfort, but that is not it.

The world turned, whipping up the sea so that it floated closer to the ship.

Go away, called the Sphinx, all that I ask is a little peace, that I might curl up under this sail cloth and dream of diving for pearls amidst the scattering fishes on the coral reefs of the east.

But to no avail, it floated right hard against the ship and made a great thunder upon its oaken side. It raised itself up, a scourge or blight that might ruin a nation, rot the crops, plunder the knowledge, and scratch the shiny things.

I have come from the place of what should never happen, to give you good grief amongst you and holding paws may comfort you but it will not dissuade me from my disruption.

Tell me then, spoke up the sphinx, if our world is to be disrupted for no good reason than the witless dreams of a vain idiot, tell me then again and I will leap from the safety of this ship and smite you down.

Darkness, said the watery thing, darkness where there is no light, and you must find your lost in the dark with your hands that do not at once recognise me. I am full of it, darkness that is. My heart is cruel with ignorance and my hands are alone.

Then, up from the depths came the fishes. Not in a one but in a many, and the smote upon the thing with their tails until it was most discomforted and made to return into its slimy shell house.

See, cried the sphinx, see now how the fine creatures of the sea come to the aid of the innocent. Be gone and take all your ruination with you.