Long Voyage

&;#65279; The following was found in
a bottle floating in the South
Atlantic in 1932.

My name, as it was blessed upon me as a child, is Horatio Whitherdon
and I was borne in Blackpool on the western coast of England in
eighteen-hundred-and-twenty-
four. I know not the present date, having been abandoned on this
forsaken island without time piece, but my most learnered estimation
would be that I am aged thirty and six years. And as it seems I am
reaching the autumn of my life I wish to relay, to whomever may come
upon this, a rather
remarkable tale. As I stated I am a Blackpool man, not to be confused
with the popular meaning of that nomenclature, but I was rather on the
well off side. My father owned a small schooner fleet, eight vessels,
which served him well in the opium trade with our Chinese cousins. As a
child I knew neither want nor hunger, and failed to see why others did.
My father was a stern man, I have since learned, they all are, but he
never failed to instill in his children the value of a guinea, more
specifically, his guineas. Just prior to my
twentieth year I could no longer stand for his meager allowance. Fifty
pounds a month is hardly enough to keep a gentleman in gaiters. Find
silk gaiters are the mark by which every judgment is made in society. I
make not the rules of position and stature, but only obey them. It was
this in mind I set out, with my fifty pounds a month, to make own way
in
the world. I tried my hand at several enterprises in my own Blackpool,
but these did not come about, and I shant bore you, gentle reader, with
specifics. It was on a Saturday after-noon that a thought hit me as if
it were thrown by Jove himself. A man of my quality should not be in
the west, but
rather in the noblest city in the world. Four days later my man had me
packed and on my way to Yorkshire. But, unfortunately, this resulted in
much the same experience as
that of Blackpool, hence a journey to London was called for. As I left
Victoria Station I had many things on my mind. But what happened next I
was wholly unprepared for. I was making my way to Kensington, to visit
a childhood friend from my days at Eton, when the very ground under my
feet began to shake. I looked up and down the lane and
strangely enough I saw no other travelers. This being the most populous
city in the world it was a strange sight. The shaking increased and I
was having a rather difficult time of
it remaining upright, until the paving stones directly in front of me
opened up. From the hole rose a flaming form. My eyes burned at the
site of it, but I could not look away. All of
the sudden the fires died away and I was standing face-to-face with the
lord himself. As if having no control of my own body I dropped to my
knees in the usual submissive manner appropriate for just such an
audience. The lord smiled and began to speak.
"Horatio, I have a great quest for you. Only you can save this earthy
existence."
"How can I, oh Lord, I am but a mere mortal?" responded I.
From his great robe the Lord removed--

At this point our narrator ran out of paper. The search continues for
more bottles.