“Someone Please Pass as a Shrimp”

It is time, they said, wandering away from the group.

Everyone looked around.

It is time.

Eating raw papaya, a girl wanted to go.

But she was not one.

Her mother was missing and did not come back in time.

“Whyyyyyyyy!!!?!?!?!?” she cried.

The army was on the march and would be there at any time.

The waters were cold and filled with terrifying creatures, but that meant nothing.

Not now.

“We should have eaten more squid,” they said, “and more fried fish.”

It would be a better way to go than tasting like bananas.

Working since dawn, a militant man was deliberating. There were weapons and ammunition in the trees. Grenades were furry coconuts. He cut down large palm fronds, then sharpened the hard stem end to shape crude arrows. Hunting in the jungle, he was incognito. Out on the beach, he had no hope—none of them did.

What they meant to say was, “We come in peace,” not, “We are here to kill you all!” It was a mistranslation they did not understand. Instead of communicating, the others were freaking out. Now they had no choice but to kill them, less they all be murdered.

In the ocean, salt water churned fish in a giant ice cream bowl. In the distance, about 50 feet offshore, a whirlpool swirled. Translucent jellyfish with tendrils trailing like egg white veils curled and dragged in the currents. Shells of alabaster pearl on the sand reflected off schools of orange, lemon and grape-tinted fish with fins swishing and sashaying around. Green sea vines growing in the wake of the water shimmered from sand sluicing through a cold, salty brew.

Getting a read on the crowd, the leader of Group A, as they called themselves, was done and not into it anymore. But that did not mean anything to Group B and their leader who was still ready to die. 

“What is wrong with these people?” he said.

Those were the days they would see anything—werewolves like zombies in the streets, vampires breaking off their canine teeth, witches flying in daylight. But these groups living on the beach were far stranger than even the most flamboyant tales.

Were they all drunk? Did they have access to some beverage the rest of the island did not brew? When they sent out a special investigator, nothing was seen or reported of wineries or liquor making stills. Moonshine was not on the menu. That was the first surprise because of the second shock. 

They did not react to how surprised we were when we saw how pink they were. Their skin was pink—hot pink—neon pink. They weren’t sure if the skin was pink because of eating too much shrimp, as with flamingos, or from sunburns or some weird depilatory treatments. People with their beauty treatments was beyond his abilities as a major man in the military. Skin turning this hot pink might be possible with beauty treatments, natural or unnatural, stated his team.

So where were the ingredients being used to turn their skin so pink? He had suspected the group was dying their skin from the inside out like they were human carnations. That’s the trip—actual flower people.

That is not the truth.

It is nothing they eat or do.

Shhhh, don’t tell him that.

He is entitled to his own…

Whatever.

The cannon boom came out of nowhere. Group B’s leader was staggering around on a bamboo and palm frond stage. He was performing an impromptu comedy routine, while also practicing what he would say for the party after they win the so-called war. He was intoxicated, but he did not get the intoxicant from Group A because they vehemently hated each other. There was a Civil War era replica cannon sticking out from the jungled edge of the village huts. And it was about to get lit again.

He lit the cannon a second time. Group A and their 25 odd members were standing in the open air shelter on the other side of the mossy beach. They were far from the cannon and its shooting end. In fact, when he lit the loud cannon, which was pointed directly at the shelter, they never saw the flame flare up or the flying ball of cast iron. 

They did not see the witch who was riding the cannonball either.

As the grass thatch roof scorched beneath the jungle tree canopy, trapping the hot pink skinned people from Group A, Group B had already fled. They were hunting the copper still they suspected Group A was using to make moonshine with—or at least some empty glass jugs. Alcohol was a must in this kind of landscape with plenty of sugaring fruits in abundance and nothing but a party atmosphere. But they didn’t know Group A was burning alive while they were searching for a still; they had missed their own battle.

This left Ocean churning and wondering—Where is the chum? Where is the feast? Where are the humans and their hot pink skin to be sacrificed? Ocean stood with a tsunami of torture ready to pound the people where they were on the shore. However, it was pitch black at night and no lights gave way to the wave. Nobody could see the massive wall of water. The only warning they had was the sucking sound and pull of gravity from the big black curtain.

Ocean observed how Group B turned their backs on the pavilion to take advantage of Group A with their hot-looking, pink skin. They were not saving them and their skin was not hot pink anymore. It was red-hot and burning into a black mass of charcoal.  

“The hot pink skins are not available. These clothed skins are wearing too much to see. I am not sure if they can be taken in. I wanted extra-extra-extra-extra large shrimp, and these are not…shrimp toned,” breathed a salty Ocean in and out with deep gusts of wind. 

“It took me so long to turn them into hot pink humans with two long shrimp-like legs. Shrimp with two legs was on the menu, and now I cannot get my meal just the way I wanted,” cried Ocean who was beginning to stir up more than just a tsunami.

OCean picked up pace, starting to breathe loudly, throwing even more sand around with a salty flourish. OCEan wanted to be a soup pot and now there were no super-sized shrimp. It would take eons to come across another group so willing to participate in their creative cooking project. What would they do now? As OCEAn, tsunamis, hurricanes, and typhoons were the tools of the kitchen. And since Group A decided to fight against Group B and Group B destroyed Group A, which was the biggest shrimp ever on this planet—OCEAN WAS NO LONGER AMUSED!

The man in the trees did see the seas and was having a seizure, lying there in the mud. This happened because when he saw the biggest wave he had ever seen, he could not help but to fall from the top of the tree. He laid there on the ground on a very hard root that was not in a good place in the base of his back. But what was most disturbing was a wave was now directly over the top of him. He woke up after hitting the ground and was fine but not at all. His body went into shock and he was paralyzed horizontally and laughing maniacally, seeing but not believing.

Controlling Ocean was the largest, reddest squid he had ever seen. This squid was the Wizard of the Sea. A single humungous wave was encapsulating the squid and hovering. 

Suddenly, the man felt his soul being sucked out of his skin. The red giant squid was lifted up out of the water and riding atop of a curling, frothy wave—like a Jewish rabbi with his great white bushy beard surrounded by a hood of lamp black at midnight. The tentacles of the squid were being used to steer the water around like a navy blue pirate ship.

“Where’s my giant shrimp?!” wailed the surfing squid with one obtrusive eye spying the wave.

That was when a witch in a solid black form without a human face came flying in on her broomstick. The witch flew between the squid on the wave and the man lying on the ground. Having one of the ripe papayas the little girl was eating, the witch chunked the seedy flesh into the moon-sized eye. The seeds and orangish flesh flecked the red squid, turning the sea creature into a wild-eyed sea monster.

The witch turned and cried before taking off, “Now you are a strawberry, SQUID!”