Danny Buoy

Danny was made of plastic, orange and white, with a large black letter W written on it, above the number 06. He lived a peaceful existence at the end of a frayed hemp rope, that had barnacles and moss growing on it. One of the barnacles, known to the wide world as Barnaby Barnacle, was his best mate. They would spend long days floating on the surface of the sea together, reminiscing about the old days, when they were both fresh and green shipmates, first year apprentices, set on a course of misfortune, which in due time saw them flounder and sink here in this shallow harbour. 

    'Ah yes', sighed Danny melancholically, 'those were the days. What I wouldn't give for one more bite of stale rock-hard sea biscuit.'

   'There's no pleasing some people', growled Barnaby, one of nature's natural miserable arseholes, 'did I tell you about that time when I was growing peacefully down the bottom of that ship and they started keelhauling all these people right over my head, scraping over my face all day and all bloody night? The sheer nerve! I said to them, I said ...'

   ‘Yes', replied Danny testily, 'you have. Only about a million times, so do us all a favour and ...' He stopped in mid-whinge, turned his head and peered out to sea. 'What's that out there?'

 He turned to Barnaby, who was still grumbling morosely into his coffee grinds, unaware that no one was actually listening to him, the story of his life. 'I told 'em, I said, I told 'em, listen, lemme tell you ...'

   'No, seriously, what's that noise out there?' Barnaby stopped grumbling, but slowly, like a car cruising down a low hill backwards without brakes, reluctant to let go of a good wheeze.

   'Look here I said, mumblemumblemumble ... what? What is it now? For fuck's sa ....'

   'Shht!' said Danny Buoy excitedly, pointing out into the ink-black night. 'There's something out there!'

 They both snapped their mouths shut with an audible clang, and stared into the dark. Something long, thin and black floated past them in slow motion, slightly curving upwards, displaying a round hole at the top. As they gawked at it, mouths wide open, flies blowing in, they realised what it was.

   'Hey mate', whispered Barnaby in hushed, reverential tones, 'you know what that is, don't you?'

Danny nodded, speechlessly.

   'It's a set of poly pipes', murmured Barnaby, awestruck. 'Haven't seen a set of them since the floods of '69. Well blow me down! I never ...'

As they stooped over their afternoon delight of warmed up seaweed and lukewarm oysters, dumbfounded and near-paralysed at such a sight, the wind picked up. It blew languidly across the round hole of the pipe. Barnaby pricked up his ears. An expression of total amazement, bordering on pants-pissing mortal dread passed over his face like a turd through a swimming pool. A rattling, hollow wheezing sound emanated from the hole at the top of the poly pipe, moaning and keening in agony, an anguished cry for the eternal unheard rising up to the sky, to continue to be unheard for a good while longer.

   'Hey Danny Buoy,' Barnaby whispered hoarsely to his mate, 'you do know what this is, don't you?'

Danny stared at him with unspeakable terror in his eyes. He knew exactly what his mate was going to say, and he was powerless to prevent it. He closed his eyes in fatal resignation.

   'What', he sighed, with the morbid fatalism of someone who has just had his last dinner before the gallows and who knows he's gonna chuck it up before he makes it to the scaffold because the screws have pissed in it again.

   'What', he repeated morosely, knowing his luck had run out and he wasn’t going to escape this one.

   'It's the pipes, Danny Buoy,' Barnaby croaked, barely managing to squeeze the words out, 'the pipes are calling ...'