Pt.2

***Part 2 of an untitled fairy-tale, please read part 1 first***

Large saucers coasted over the azure horizon, reflecting the jaundiced sunrise of a post-storm morning, their porcelain circumferences levitating for fifty yards before dipping (plummeting, really) into the burbling surf below. Followed by the occasional shoe. And on the shore, Roger Kessel heaved gigantic breaths and flexed his gigantic hands, watching the graceful arcs of his jettisoned flotsam.

Roger had a ritual. This particular rite was generally accepted by local law enforcement as an exercise in personal well-being. The consensus held that whatever reason Roger had for standing on the beach and pitching second-hand dishes into the sea, it was probably in everyone's best interest to let him proceed. And after all, 22 years of plates pulverized and polished by the tide lent the sands an ethereal shimmer that drew tourists from as far away as Brunswick.

As for the shoes, they did not accumulate. The steady pulse of waves ferried them to the beach, where Roger would retrieve and hurl them back in a perpetual, slow motion game of hot potato.

Roger's elongated digits were punctuated by bulbous joints that ached and festered. Several times daily, Roger would stop and glower at his extremities, sucking his teeth and grimacing before stooping for his next discus. And so he was caught glowering, bent and focused with pinched face and centered ire staring at his paws when the giant rock drifted past.

For years, geologists and seismologists would debate the feasibility of Roger's tale, while rational people would argue about the stability of his mental state. No matter what their opinion on the unfolding of events, the outcome and resulting phenomena was concrete. His fantastic narrative went as follows:

As his suffering fingers let fly the day's last projectile, his eyes were arrested by the strangest sight. On the waves about 100 yards offshore sailed a miniature island, a ship made of rock and earth. Perched atop it was a crooked cabin with a twisted tin tube protruding from it's side and over the edge. And teetering on the brink swayed a body, swaddled in disintegrating rags, with extended shoes jutting out into space and a paper bag covering his head, shuddering.

As he stood in shock, jaw unhinged and mouth agape in amazement, one thing became very clear to Roger. The boat was sinking. Each blue undulation of the water lapped slightly higher against the hull of the odd floating boulder. And so he did what he knew had to be done. He plucked off his battered shoes, heaved them into the swaying sea with all his muscle, and plunged himself in after, paddling with enormous, distressed hands, intent on rescuing this mysterious masked stranger from his floundering prison.