CURRENT ISSUE 05/27/03 Front Page Weekly Features Ain't That America? To-Do List News from Travistan Musing with Mitch Moth's Diary Globetrotting with Push Riding Shotgun with Adventure Info Archives Crap Shop Who's at Fault? Contact Us! Aye, mateys! Get you some Daily Probe booty!	I Do Fear Mister Ishmael's Days Are Numbered Here A guest Probeatorial by Mr. Flask, 3rd Mate, Whaleship Pequod, Nantucket, Mass. I duly send greetings, gentle reader, and hope that this correspondence finds you in health and Godliness. Our voyage has been according to plan in that already twelve barrels sit full in store upon the belowdecks. Should news of my loss precede this letter, kindly send notice to Mrs. Flask for my final preparations care of Fr. Mapple of Whaleman's Chapel, Nantucket. Our mission here has changed profoundly, with the singular Captain, Mister Ahab, purporting that the White Whale alone shall be our prize. That you could see the motley group of wild savages he has retained to such an end! One would not blink for a moment to see the very Devil himself aboard, lowering to the whaleboats as any other of the crew, but with tail and hooves. Our monomaniacal leader worries me not (though Mr. Starbuck quite disagrees, and gnashes most openly at our predicament). What builds in my mind is the peculiar words of one Mr. Ishmael, simple sailor and bowsman to the great islander and harpooneer, Queequeg. How he prattles! Should I be one touch less worried about his milling about so, I would not lower quill to inkwell so as to bother you now, gentle reader. I am but a minor player in all this story that unfolds. Please indulge an example: A mere twelve days from the Cape of Good Hope, we found ourselves upon level seas, as if the very Heavens were quieted to our interruption of their Divine plan for this day. Shortly the mighty Daggoo, immense and black, with rings of gold upon his ears, sights white spouts off port bow. Soon, by the grace of God and quick boatmanship of Mr. Stubb, we wrought from the depths the Leviathan, a large male. No sooner is the most treacherous and ignoble task of unsheathing the blubber from the great corpse begun but Mr. Ishmael begins waxing philosophical regarding every facet of the hugeness of this odorous mass. The eye, the ear, the blow-hole, the snuffbox jaw of the fish. He could not give it a rest long enough to raise even a finger to the procurement of the very same! "No, Mr. Ishmael, the jaw presents itself not at all like the lid of a pipe-tin, with hinge at the end rather than alongsides." "No, Mr. Ishmael, the great head of the beast is quite unlike a coffin, and moreso a store of the precious ambergris, the very stuff by which our benefactor shall pay each man aboard no less than one two-hundred-seventy-fifth share." "Yes, Mr. Ishmael, we are all well-advised to note that the great fluke of the fish lies parallel, unlike the improper cetology of Beale, whom thou so disgrace with your words." Kindly put thy hand upon the monkey-rope, Mr. Ishmael, that the slack thereon will not commit good Queequeg to the shark-churned waters. Lend us a hand rather than a tongue, good sir, that the story of the stripping of the massive carcass might be told over our families' bountiful dinner tables and not before the poorhouse steps! Alas, I see that thou art caught up in thy bleary-eyed simile while the dregs of precious blubber dry out upon the deck, draining through and dousing the beards of the tired whalemen who slumber beneath the floorboards. Let not our petty and unctuous work disturb thy musing! Great God, such a bastard, he! I wish upon him the most blasphemous fate at times, that I must hold my tongue to keep from raising ruckus from upon the quarterdeck. Yet at times I find myself imagining that the slothful, muddled Ishmael alone might suffer the fate of good Ahab's leg, to be swallowed whole by the pallid Moby-Dick, whilst the rest of the Holy and hard-working men aboard, thirty-seven in all, might reach fruition in our quest to rid the seas of the White Whale. And by so doing, also purging the earth of that great bastion of nature, that single untamed frontier upon which man has yet to place his trembling hand to call his own. Yes, Mister Ishmael -- We shall complete our quest quite well without your help. And when we return to our soft homes, barrels teeming with the ichor of the great Moby-Dick, all of Nantucket will glow through the night with the warmth of our success. And thou, clever Ishmael, shall not be there to tell the tale. Yours &ca, Flask (Transcribed by Travis Ruetenik)
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