BEASTLY TALES

THE CRUISE

Orville Armpit had read about cruises,
The sophistication and glamour and boozes.
Some cruise liners seemed to be floating cities.
Exotic beyond belief for play boys and pretties.
But, of course, they came with a big price tag.
Orville was poor, behind expectations did lag.
Then, one splendid summer’s day he did see,
An advertisement for a cruise on T.V.
It announced with big fan-fare,
That a Mystery Cruise was to be had, if you dare!
Two weeks of sun-soaked pleasure,
Taking your ease, in luxurious leisure,
All this for an affordable price,
It certainly did sound so very nice.

To board the ship, he’d need to fly to Djibouti,
Who knows, on the way he might meet a cutie.
Then the cruise would follow Somalia’s coast.
It sounded just fine and dandy, he’d make the most,
Of the splendid opportunity that did exist,
Once in a lifetime, too good to be missed!
And so he lost no time in making a booking,
Then, into the Atlas he began looking.
The Feeling Lucky Airlines’ plane landed near Obock,
It was quite early, only six o’clock,
But already the heat was quite intense,
And the stretch of sandy landscape so immense,
Orville now took a bus to Djibouti, the town.
The bus had no windows, so soon he was brown,
From the huge quantities of windblown dust,
Everything was the colour of rust.

The bus dropped him off at the crowded wharf,
Beggars surrounded him, so on and so forth,
He saw what he imagined to be a tramp ship,
Probably loading cargo for it’s next trip.
The Cruise Liner must be moored further on,
It was a great pity that the bus had gone.
Then he spied the ship’s name on the bow,
The name was the “Mombasa Mabu”. It was now,
That Orville began to feel somewhat uneasy,
In fact, truth be told, he felt really queezy.

Orville carried his bags up the narrow gangplank,
Nothing about the ship was tidy, certainly not swank.
He asked the crew member at the top of the plank,
Is this the Mystery Cruise? Perhaps he’d drawn a blank.
The crew members standing around began to snigger,
Then one of them, who was much bigger,
Said, “You’re just in time, the cruise is set to start,”
“Here, put your baggage in this cart,”
“Kaboba here will show you to your cabin,”
“As you step over open hatches, be sure to grab on,”
“To such guard rails that do exist,”
“An earlier passenger didn’t, and missed,”
“His footing and fell into the hold,”
“The bump on his head knocked him out cold.”

The ship sailed shortly, thereafter,
To the sound of singing and laughter.
Orville soon realized they were laughing at him,
Standing there in his holiday clothes looking so prim.
The captain turned up in a sweaty T-Shirt,
He smiled through his stubble and dirt,
“Welcome aboard the Mombasa Mabu,”
“You’re our only passenger, we’re glad to have you.”
“We’ll be sailing along Somalia’s coast,”
“Better stay in the shade, or else you will roast,”
“There’ve been no pirate attacks for a couple of days”
“Should there be one, don’t forget your hands to raise”
“We’ll stop in Yemen on the way there,”
“There’s a war going on, but never you care,”
“If anyone should point a blunderbus at us,”
“We’ll just sail off without any fuss.”
“Dinner will be whenever you like,”
“Go to the galley and ask for Mike,”
“He’ll give you a nice bowl of gruel,”
“It’s so tasty it’ll make you drool,”
“Then take it back to your cabin to eat,”
“Realizing that you are in for a treat!”

So on the cargo hatch covers, Orville did laze,
Each day rolling into the next like a haze.
A couple of pirate attacks did create a diversion,
But the pirates finding nothing left with no coercion.
Orville was laid up for a few days with salmonella,
Causing him to feel like a very sick fellow,
Soon the ship arrived at night in Mombasa,
Where Orville was to disembark to buy some macassar,
To use on his hair when he returned home,
Which was also what he’d now do, no more to roam.