Bromfords of the Kollobita´´rtainnen - Part 21

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"Angel of Bromford"

It was a cold and wet December day
When we touched the ground at JFK
Snow was melting on the ground
On BLS I heard the sound
Of an angel

New York, like a Christmas tree
Tonight this city belongs to me
Angel

Soul love, this love won't let me go
So long, angel of Bromford

Birdland on fifty-three
The street sounds like a symphony
We got John Coltrane and a love supreme
Miles, and she's got to be an angel

Lady Day got diamond eyes
She sees the truth behind the lies
Angel


Soul love, this love won't let me go
So long, angel of Bromford
Angel of Bromford

She says it's heart, heart and soul
Yeah, yeah (yeah)
Yeah, yeah (right now)

Blue light on the avenue
God knows they got to you
An empty glass, the lady sings
Eyes swollen like a bee sting

Blinded you lost your way
Through the side streets and the alleyway
Like a star exploding in the night
Falling to the city in broad daylight

An angel in Devil's shoes
Salvation in the blues
You never looked like an angel
Yeah, yeah, angel of Bromford
Angel, angel of Bromford

After a silent night - which strangely was also filled by a sort of rumbling vibration like from a Buffalo galloping by over the vast meadows of the prairie, at the same time - we four humans, Kylie, Nigel, Claude Sideburns and myself, and the walking and talking llama are gathering with Mr. Tummy, the ship's cook, and Mr. Wiker, the first mate on deck again.

We can hear Captain Ahabraham Hammock rummaging, mumbling and cursing in his cabin under deck as he did the whole night through.

Mr. Tummy is serving another breakfast, a lot of fruits this time. Some look familiar like apples or oranges. Some look slightly off, like blue bananas or pineapples with a hairy, fibery perm at the top. Others I have never seen, yellow cube-shaped things with black dots and one spiral-shaped with different layers in all colours of the rainbow.

»You have to taste them«, Mr. Tummy assures us. »They grow on the countless and nameless little islands around here. And they all taste marvellous. «

Mr. Tumbleweed, the faun, is standing in the bow of the ship. He has spent the night awake under the strange stars of the Kollobita´´rtainnen Sea.

As I take a closer look at our surroundings it seems to me that the WaveEater has moved in the darkness. We are now slowly bobbing between the scattered little islands the remaining crew has mentioned earlier. And on the horizon, hidden in the thick, white fog I suspect the continent of Greenlion.

As if Mr. Tumbleweed had read my thoughts he turns around to me with a wink in this eyes and nodding.

»So«, William B. Wiker says after a short while of silence, »now you know our story and how it is and was for the last few days or weeks or maybe centuries. «

»We are cursed«, Mr. Tummy adds. »But the fruits are delicious. «

»Fruits in springtime. « Mr. Wiker is closing his eyes. »For it is always springtime in the Kollobita´´rtainnen Sea. «

»But the shrubs and bushes and trees are blooming and bearing fruits at the same time«, says Tummy, the cook. »Like in the Garden of Eden. We will not hunger and thirst. «

Nigel spits out, »Salty! «

He has tasted one of the spiral-shaped rainbow-fruits.

»Garden of Eden? « Claude Sideburns asks, »And it is cursed and haunted by a giant snake you call a Water Dragon? «

»It is not that simple«, the first mate sighs. »Yes, we have been attacked after our first visit to that cove where we saw all those mystical creatures and maybe Queen Titania of the fairies herself. But it wasn't Sneezewort, the Water Dragon, who attacked the WaveEater afterwards. «

»He is one of us. «

Mr. Tumbleweed is suddenly standing behind us.

»We met him a short time after that«, Tummy says. »Or a long time. Who knows? He seemed to be only curious, almost friendly. «

Wiker continues, »The worst and the saddest thing is, the captain is mixing things up. Yes, we have been attacked. Yes, five or more men of our crew disappeared, but they were not swallowed. They just left and joined the crew of another ship. «

»The poor captain snapped«, Tummy cries out.

»But the attacker was a different one. The Water Dragon is not the biggest threat in the Kollobita´´rtainnen Sea. And it is not the giant snake that is after the Amber Heart of the Sea. «

»If it is not this Dragon«, I ask, »who or what is the greatest terror and the greatest threat of the Kollobita´´rtainnen Sea? «

»It is Cliff! «

We are all turning to the llama.

»The good old evil Cliff Hanger. Don't you know him? «

Today is Thursday, the 21st of December 2023.