“Believe it.” Reed said cooly.
I didn’t. This was a gag. A great looking gag but a gag nonetheless.
I’d hoped to reacquaint myself with saturation diving but alas the wreck was a touch too deep.
Though supremely more claustrophobic, the trip down in the submersible was as exciting as an elevator ride.
The thing lay at the unimpressive depth of 2,734 feet. It was on a sort of submerged island that jutted from the surrounding average of 14,040 feet.
Given the character of the ship and crew I’d gotten the notion that we’d go much deeper. I wanted to test limits whether I dove or tin canned my way down.
Lost bragging rights aside…this was spectacular…significant in that it stuck out like a sore thumb.
It’s hard to recollect all these years later but it was something like an island’s highlands that had been submerged.
Atop which…sat the most unbelievable thing…and by unbelievable I mean that I really didn’t believe it.
There illuminated by the eerily wavering yellow glow of our searchlight sat a pill-shaped thing with little triangular wings.
It sat with its nose angled up towards the surface atop a crumbling runway.
“This is a prop Captain.”
“Believe it.” He reiterated in the same cool tone.
The submersible only held three men. The captain was more like two men, so it was with some difficulty that my eyes found their way past that cretaceous skull, and through the dim light of the interior to inspect Schmidt’s features.
That smirk meant that he was just as incredulous as I. Though he refrained from vocalizing his skepticism.
The thing was too perfect. Too unmarred by salt and sea.
Although…everything else was spot on. In terms of decay. All around the briny deep lay crumbled ruins of stone.
My guess was that this really was fascinating, in that it represented a heretofore unknown civilization in the south pacific.
The goofy bit was that someone, likely the captain himself… had sunk a prop, a mock spaceship, to make the impious worship again. Very Scooby Doo this. I chuckled.
“Believe it.” The captain repeated yet again with that same even cadence.
I couldn’t. Not because it contravened all established knowledge. But because it was too perfect. It gleamed in the light.
The captain panned that light around the ruins. The wide acrylic bubble provided us with nearly 360 degrees of visibility…. that is if one could peek round that massive blockhead.
There among the stones and glyphs, I glimpsed the thing that rendered me a convert.
The thing, or rather the things that made the hair stand straight up on the back of my neck weren’t the hundreds of skeletons, not even the hundreds of other gleaming little props… that not even this wealthy loon’s fortune could have sunk, no…
There like spectral fingers were thousands upon thousands of exposed rusting metal beams and struts.
1.1 (Intro) The Sketch of Sam Monroe
1.2 The Cajun Prayer
1.3 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter One: The Cambridge Gable Scene (‘Gator is Waitin’)
1.4 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.4 – The Cambridge Gable Scene – (Horticulture)
1.5 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.5: ‘To Luckadoo Cove’
1.6 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.6 – ‘Is there anybody out there…’
1.7 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.7: ‘Jesse’
1.8 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.8: ‘Lungful of Bees’
1.9 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.9 – ‘Precedent’
2.0 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.0 -Calvinist Neuroses
2.1 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.1 – Mirage
2.2 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.2 – Estate Planning
2.3 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.3 – High Tech Summons
2.4 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.4 – Amazon Stonehenge
2.5 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.5 – Jung
2.6 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.6 – Dee
2.7 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.7 – Meeting 211
2.8 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.8 – Itinerary
2.9 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.9 – Fact and Fiction
2.10 Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.10 -Kaffeeklatsch
2.11 Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.11 – Catnap
2.12 Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.12 – ‘One Pair’
2.13 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.13 – Reentry
2.14 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.14 – Phoenix
2.15 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.15 – Apollo and Dionysus
3.0 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 3.0 – Inherit the Wind
3.1 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 3.1 – Stardust
3.2 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 3.2 – Loyola
3.3 Chapter 3.3 – High and Dry
3.4 Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 3.4 – One Dream
3.5 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 3.5 – Pensive
3.6 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 3.6 – Feijoada
3.7 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 3.7 – ‘Good food and good work…’
3.8 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 3.8 – A Good Egg
3.9 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 3.9 – Oregon Hill
3.10 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 3.10 – ‘Thick Bushes’
4.0 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 4.0 – No room at the Inn
4.1 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 4.1 – The Union Jack
4.2 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 4.2 – The Genevive
4.3 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 4.3 – Ecclesiastes 1:18
4.4 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 4.4 – Bleached
4.5 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 4.5 – Marty
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