Tall Tales at Vent Camp

Drimmie bopped a venturesome tube-worm with her tiny fist (it retracted sulkily) and took her customary spot ’round the prodigious black smoker known as “Noxious Nigel” to all the old hands of Cascadia Vent Camp. She spread her fingers wide to the cheery warmth and looked expectantly upwards to the wrinkled yet gamely smiling face of Willem, who, as usual, was presiding over the nightly story time. 

“Well, children,” Willem exclaimed, neatly flicking a small shrimp off his left shoulder, “What’s it to be?” 

An explosion of contending shouts. Willem had a fairly short stock of tales and the campers had heard each of these at least a half-dozen times by now, but this did not stop them from being fierce little advocates for their own particular favourites. 

There was “Zadoc and the Grouper” (always a safe bet for a good laugh, especially among the younger campers), “The Great Crab Hunt” (a rousing, perennial crowd-pleaser), and of course “It Came from the Shallows” (which sometimes gave Drimmie nightmares, although she would never admit it), as well as several other well-worn yarns that Willem could recite even in his sleep, or so he liked to claim. His eyes gleamed merrily behind his purplish-teal faceplate as he lifted his hands in a grand, soothing gesture and waited for the shouted suggestions to subside. 

“All right, all right!” An anticipatory hush descended upon the circled campers. Drimmie grinned, enjoying the shoulder-to-shoulder cram of her compatriots, the way she could crane her neck backwards and watch trusty Noxious Nigel’s dark grey smoke billow up, up, up and disappear into the greater blackness. 

Willem leaned forward, one eye nearly shut against the vent’s friendly glow. “”The Rock Lubbers” – that’s the one!” A cacophony of hoorays and groans from the campers. Willem settled upon his little bench of basalt and closed his eyes. An anglerfish poked its head between two unwitting campers then politely absented itself back into the darkness. 

Drimmie wriggled with excitement. This story was one of her favourites. 

Willem abruptly opened his eyes wide, peering among his captive audience. “Children! Are you all good little Sea Dwellers?” The campers knew their part well. “Yes!” they cried, with gusto. 

“Do the lot of you put together have more sense than a salmon?” 

“Yes!” 

“Is there anyone here with more brains than a barnacle?” 

“Yes!” 

Willem took a deep breath. “Then surely you’d never do such a daft, foolish, woebegotten thing as set out to make a living on – of all places – the fish-forsaken land!?!” 

“NO!!!” 

Their eager response was punctuated by the soft thump of a distant whalefall. 

Willem leaned back and sighed heavily with a practiced relief that almost managed to sound genuine. “Well, that’s wonderful news. That puts you well ahead of just about all of your ancestors. For did you know!” He rocked forward with a sudden intensity and transfixed Drimmie herself with a piercing stare before sweeping his eyes port and starboard along the multi-coloured faceplates of his listeners. “Did you know. Before we came to our senses and took up residence in this selfsame sea, we silly humans willingly spent our days out in the open, on dry rock?!?” 

Utter silence. The children knew from experience that the audience participation portion of the tale was over. 

“It’s true, it’s true,” he confided knowingly before launching into the blubber of his story. Drimmie let her mind drift with the narrative as Willem described, in vivid detail, the strange and exotic doings of the Rock Lubbers. 

By day, these unfortunate folk were baked and half-blinded by a giant fireball. By night, they nearly froze to death. They staggered about unnaturally on their two legs. The Rock Lubbers willingly gorged themselves on food grown in – get this – mud and dirt and slime. A chorus of disgusted yelps arose at this sordid revelation. Willem shook his head ruefully. 

There was more. It was their pastime to dig giant holes then promptly fill them in, presumably in some misguided attempt at fun. On the same principle, they stacked up big, towering piles of wood and metal, only to knock them back down in short order. And the poor fools wasted a good bit of time trying to catapult themselves off the planet – imagine that! – while they had a perfectly good set of oceans right here the whole time. These were but a few of the many inexplicable follies that Willem gleefully recounted. 

“And worst of all,” Willem finally proclaimed, with a single gloved finger raised warningly, “Worst of all, the Rock Lubbers set about making great, endless fires wherever they went, to no purpose. And so.” He stood, small clouds of silt puffing out from beneath his plaid flippers. “Is it any wonder they spent all their time coughing and hacking in all the smoke and steam and vapor they made until they just couldn’t stand it any more? Is it any wonder that the Rock Lubbers finally smartened themselves up and became…” – Willem gestured proudly at them all, at the vast and still expanse of waters all around them – “Sea Dwellers?” 

There was a half-hearted cheer and scattered claps from a few of the more polite-minded of the campers, but for the most part their attention was now firmly elsewhere. They had grown peckish and knew what was coming next. 

“And now, my little Sea Dwellers.” A wave of fidgeting rippled through them. “It’s time for a snack!” Willem reached into the eelskin pouch strapped across his chest and deftly distributed a speared jellyfish to each delighted camper, saving the largest and gummiest one for himself. 

Drimmie felt an ineffable contentment as she set her snack to roasting over the glowing sea vent, its gentle thrum humming in her ears. She never knew if there was much truth in Willem’s old stories, but here in the comforting dark, surrounded by her friends, she was certain he was at least right that humanity had found its home.