Wreck of the Scumby Thooner

In swamy spring did we tithe and tyre
A young man's fortune to the waves
Followed we fortunes fickle and dire
That sent men to their graves

With Gyre and Gimble at my side
Stroth then, this fellowship of three
And struck our course with pride
We set forth t'ward the sea

In Mungy Port had we no sooner
Broke backs to grimful toil and labor
Then docked a ship, the Scumby Thooner
A brutish coursing saber

All precarious and intriguing now
Our futures were soon seeming
This vessel had upon its bow
A maiden with hair streaming

Took we then jobs as men o' the line
To fight for God and Nation
A corsair's life is one that's fine
This was to be our station

Across the sea and down the main
Searched our crew for plunder
'Til in summer off the coast of Spain
Came echoing peals of thunder

'Twas nightfall 'fore the storm did break
And tossed the Scumby Thooner
Debris floated in our wake
And lower rode our schooner

'Neath Heaven our heathen hides
Toiled long into the night
Above Hell we fought against the tides
In hopes to stay our plight

Before the dawn could come to hand
We'd run against a shoal
As wreckage flew, we swam for land
But few men reached the goal

And as pale light broke across the sky
To notes of angelic choir
Standing fast and true we heaved a sigh
Myself and Gimble and Gyre

They all have unfortunate initials

Phineas Michael Simpson had an unfortunate monogram. As a child, he was tormented relentlessly by the older boys because of this and for this reason he was a bitter and angry young lad. At the age of 14 he'd taken a Wiffle™ bat and bludgeoned the leader of his tormentors, Webster Anders Smythe-Pennings, into the emergency room. Twenty-five stitches, a course of vicodin, and two weeks later, Webster repentantly approached Phineas and begged his forgiveness. Phineas laughed in his face and kicked him in the balls.

Webster was a man of few words. This was due to a speech impediment he'd developed as a teenager. Realize, gentle reader, that most speech abnormalities manifest with the acquisition of language, but Webster's particular trouble stemmed from the fact that he'd bitten part of his tongue off during a schoolyard brawl during his formative years, and this had given him a noticeable lisp that had made him extremely shy and hesitant to talk to girls. The only woman he'd ever felt comfortable around was Maryanne. Webster had met Maryanne at the Youth Christian Camp he had been forced to attend by his parents. Maryanne had been the reason Webster had entered Seminary School at the age of 18, but he had not seen her for more than eight years. It's sad sometimes, how childhood loves slip out of our lives almost unnoticed.

Maryanne Ooglethorp Pree looked at her watch. She swore angrily, stomped on the clutch, shifted into fifth gear, and gunned the engine of her old but trustworthy Chevelle. She had less than seven minutes to get to where she needed to be. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she considered how angry people would be if she were even thirty seconds late. It didn't bear thinking about, so she pressed her foot even more firmly toward the floor and coaxed a few more RPM out of the roaring engine and a few more MPH out of the drive shaft. Sweat trickled down her temple and her teeth clenched together. She heaved a sigh of relief as she pulled into the parking lot outside the bank just in time to see the glass doors explode outward in a shower of shimmering shards and three men in black coats run out. She'd been in time.