A tale

Once upon a time there was a... oh forget the traditional opening sentence for a story! How about: The thunder crashed! The waves, like dancing elephants, dwarfed the vertically challenged vessel (now that's as PC as it can get...) as it was flung about like a racket ball in a heated game (and that is a poor attempt at an idiom). Its occupants (we are still talking about the vessel here) were terrified (no duh) and burrowed deeper beneath the tarp under which they were hiding. Their cries for help were lost amidst the roaring of the wind and the crashing of the mighty waves. And why were they going unheard? Because the vessel was lost to the grip of a force 9 hurricane in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. One wonders why they even bothered to waste their strength making noise.

Try and place yourself within this story. Smell the salt of the sea, the wood of the vessel, the scent of fear. Feel the icy water and the furious gale on your face, whipping your hair into un-imagined styles. See the foam at the crest of the towering waves and watch as they pour down into the vessel, threatening to bury it forever. See the spray, which for a moment turns into glistening diamonds in the staccato flashes of lightning. Taste fear, salt, the skin of the one next to you because you are waaaaaay too squashed together... (Did I get all the senses? Let me see... smell, touch, sight, taste... that's four, what's the missing one? Oh! Hearing.) Hear the roar of the waves and the cries for help. Tune your ears to the screaming of the wind and the anger of the waves. (Hmm, that last parentheses really shattered my attempt to pull your senses into my story. Rats. And this one totally ruined it. Guess I'll just abandon the tale.)

It's ok if I do quit, however. Because it was only a couple of rats in a discarded barrel.