Diving for pearls

Waves are crashing around me as I resurface, gasping for air. Happy with my catch, I swim to my yacht. Back on deck, I place my fresh haul of pearls in my sea-chest. Since I don’t much care for the interchangeable cultured variety, as soon as I receive a new assignment, I waste no time plunging into the depths of the sea to bring a unique jewel of vocabulary on land.

Grammar buccaneer that I am, I swing my feathered sword to obliterate the contemptible notion of the commonplace. Intent on bringing a juicy morphological clutch to land, I seize, rob and plunder anything that flows into my rich wake of words.

My thoughts are clambering up the mast. Straining my wind-lashed face upwards (I really ought to turn down the air-conditioning a little), I can positively smell my salty sea of words luring my readers siren-like. The sole place on my ship for the landlubber otherwise known as the bog-standard text is the plank leading to a wet grave.

But then the joy exuding from the waves of ingenuity crash against the rocks of ignorance. The songs that initially praised my distinctive wordplay fall silent. In their place, a choir gives forth a consistently monotonous melody of intellectual castration. The subtext reads: change course.

Bobbing back and forth in a tepid alphabet soup, my swift vessel has become a melancholic coffee boat for the slow-witted. Every now and then the keel is hit by wordplay, giving the passengers a jolt.

On the lookout for a soul-destroying port, I steer my idea-laden barge in the direction of creative ruin. Standing at the bow, I cast my entire clutch of pearls to the swine. The final morsels of textual genius swim bloated to the surface, from where they are washed lifeless to the Bay of Pigs. A treat for the ravenous porkers.

I stare cravingly at the sated beasts and envisage them roasting on a spit over a fire. Salivation is inevitable. Crests of foam appear at the corners of my mouth, evoking mother of pearl in the evening light.