1276-Robina and Azeem celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary by taking a cruise around the known world courtesy of the Skandanavian cruise line started up by Azeema's husband, Leif the Looker.
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1276-Robina and Azeem celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary by taking a cruise around the known world courtesy of the Skandanavian cruise line started up by Azeema's husband, Leif the Looker.
1277 - Robin, feeling the Empty Nest, attempts to follow in a rowboat, but falls behind, is caught in a storm, and is stranded on a deserted tropical island.
1278 - Having lost his boat and his bow and his chance of escape being low, he wanders aimlessly for many days. His ramblings bring him to the other end of the island and he beholds with despair the endless ocean. The divide between the ephemeral life and eternal death seems narrow on the brink of the island. The last embers of hope are doused in cold hopelessness and he obligingly approaches the dark waves beckoning him to cross the last threshold. As he comes closer to the periphery he witnesses a sight previously hidden behind a pile of rocks. His heart leaps with joy at the sight of something which is better than what he had hoped for. Women! Naked women, sunbathing! He swiftly ducks behind the rocks and crawls slowly toward them until there is only a single rock which keeps him out of their sight. He listens intently to their talking, but it sounds like gibberish. He becomes impatient and decides to ask for help. As he comes out from behind the rock into their view, they shriek in terror and before he can utter a word they turn into mermaids and plunge in to the ocean.
1279 - Robin spends most of the year screaming in frustration, pausing for breath, and screaming some more. He fashions a bow out of saplings wound together and a string out of bark. Attaching coconuts and leaves to the ends of sticks, he manages to create a deadly arsenal of Coconut Arrows. Striking the island animals unconscious with his new arrows, Robin becomes the scourge of the isle. Fortunately, he has the foresight not to hunt the island bare. He also occasionally stops by the beach to flex his ancient muscles, hoping the mermaids will be drawn to him.
1280 - At midnight on December 31, 1279, a single mermaid swims up to a rock jutting out of the waves. She flips something flat toward Robin who came to the shore immediately. (Does he watch for the mermaids day and night? Apparently so!) The flat object sails like a pie tin although, since pie tins haven't been invented yet, Robin decides to call it a "frizz be" for reasons known only to himself. When he picks it up, he sees that it once was a flounder. Now, the skin, dried and stretched taut, has become a canvas upon which the mermaid has drawn Robin.
It seems that Robin is holding an arrow in the drawing at roughly hip level....
1281 - Robin, vaguely shocked, scribbles on the canvas in blood (lacking any other ink) and tosses it back.
The message:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stranded Robin
1282 - He hopes that one of the mermaids will take pity on him. But to Robin’s misfortune, the stench of blood on the canvas attracts hundreds of sharks. The canvas is swallowed by one unlucky shark. And what followed was bloody mayhem. The hitherto harmless herbivorous sharks turn cannibalistic and attack the one which swallowed the blood stained canvas, tearing away chunks of meat until the canvas is once again out in the agitated waters turbid with blood. The blood bath continues until only a few fatally injured and lame ones, unable to fight any more, retreat.
The sunlight can no longer penetrate the opaque waters, now, almost, saturated with blood. The beautiful mermaids who dwell on the ocean floor soon become aware of the untimely darkness that has engulfed their heavenly abode. They not only see that their surroundings are now illuminated in pallid red but also sense a mild but intensifying stench of death. The crimson fluid soon pervades their entire dwelling and the nauseating stench forces them to leave the waters. With fear and curiosity they take to their tails and swim hastily towards the surface where they are greeted by mutilated bodies of dead sharks floating all around. There being no other refuge, they swim towards the shore and notice that several dead sharks have been washed ashore. They also notice a fire burning on the seashore.
The mermaids having turned into women upon setting their tail on the shore, make their way towards the fire. On reaching there, as one would have already guessed, they come across our friend, Robin, who is fast asleep, after feasting on a dead shark and emptying a bottle of rum which he had found amongst a ancient ship-wreck. The mermaids notice the pile of fish bones next to him and conclude that he is the miscreant who has caused the defilement of their abode. One of them nudges him awake. Robin, who is still in a inebriated condition, slowly opens his eyes. He is dumbstruck with awe at the sight of unclad women, whose wet bodies gleam in the twilight with the crimson hue cast by dancing flames. Blood continues to drips from their long golden hair. One of them holds out a tattered canvas before his face which he recognizes.
1283........a loooooooong pause............
1284
The mermaids finally leave robin for dead on the island and go off to play with bubble balls.
1285 - NOOOOO!!!
Robin gets up and staggers towards the water with the intent of diving in after the mermaids, but is so horribly hammered that he falls forward, planting his face in the dirt. Using his fingers and toes, he slowly crawls towards the sea across the thankfully-no-longer-hot sand.
1286 what he didnt realise is it would take him a YEAR to crawl in this fashion but finally like a very lucky newly hatched turtle he reached the sea. But by then the mermaids had migrated due to global warming.
1287 - But before he can get to the water the mermaids once again return; each carrying a bag full of jewels. They walk past him without sparing him a glance. Several uneventful days pass and Robin gets tired of looking at the mermaids who continue to ignore him. In addition to the relentless jabbering, all that the mermaids did was wear their jewellery, sun bathe and remove the jewellery before going to sleep.
1288 - Robin was looking for this opportunity and he decamped with all the jewellery.
1289 - Only to be taken prisoner by Caesar who was returning with his fleet after plundering Atlantis.
1290 - Robin thought, it's just a matter of time and he would soon be out of prison to take his revenge.