The Pearly Side of Shells

If there is one solitary word that is most misunderstood in our world today, it is this: love. Not war, not peace, not even fear itself. But love. For one reason or another, the concept of love has been twisted, been mutilated, until hardly a shred of the original masterpiece remains. For the bitter wife, love takes the form of horses’ blinders, designed to keep her vision straight while her husband gallops about with dainty curves and diseased forms of carnal pleasure. To the poor, love seems nothing short of a privilege. How can they expect to entertain ideas of unbridled passion when even the sight of a full cupboard is too much to hope for? Certainly they would be selfish to indulge in self gratification when there are dry mouths to be fed. And what about those of whom the heart has been trampled; ‘broken’ beyond repair? Love is a nasty, vile, and above all agonizing design that only serves to render the living half dead. In truth even the spelling L-O-V-E has become synonymous with animosity, disgust, scorn and spite, painful affliction, and a whole darkened pit full of tormenting words existing simply to prick the soul. 
         Such affirmations I cannot begin to comprehend, let alone entertain. For what reason is there to exist if not for love? Where is the beauty of yellow hair without the admirer’s gaze to strike it gold? Flecks of skin without a lover’s touch to turn it to smooth porcelian? I ask, wha…”

“Oi! Boy! Now answer me this, how’re the prawns ‘posed to make their way outta the bucket and into the crate? Hmmm? Crawl themselves over! Ger’ off yer lazy be-hind and move some muscle! Or I’ll move it fer’ ya! God damn waste of my time.”

At the sound, I didn’t just flinch. I nearly sprang off the edge of the box serving as my perch, sending both myself and my dignity toppling onto the cobbled road. Without even taking the time to grasp a sense of direction I scrambled over my weedy limbs, a rather poor attempt at getting ‘off my lazy be-hind’ as quickly as physically possible. I could feel the owner’s harsh and burning gaze like a thick smoke threatening to suffocate me on the spot. From experience I knew that if those prawns didn’t somehow appear in the sales crate within the next twenty seconds it would be the flesh on my back that would pay the price. After all, it would be a dead lie to say this wasn’t like me. To say that I never blew off my duties under “Gruffie’s Fish Tent” to indulge whatever thought had managed to flutter into my head that day. The fact that I even still had a job was only due to my boss being somehow indebted to my late father. I didn’t really know the specifics. Gruffie wasn’t exactly a man of many words. But I did know that he had served under my father on some navy ship years ago because he always went on and on about how great my father was compared to my, how did he put it, “meaningless skull and toothpick arms”. But in a sad and twisted way, I still felt some love for the man known as Gruffie. He had given me a roof, three square meals every day, and a place to earn a little cash. That was asking a lot out of a man like my boss. So it was never my intention to slack off, to get him riled up like this…it was just my nature.