Ping Yi writes poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction. After a three-decade detour in public service, he resumed his lifelong interest in speculative, humour and travel writing. His work has appeared in Orbis (Readers’ Award Joint 1^st), Litro (Editor’s Pick), Impspired, London Grip, Meniscus, StepAway, Harbor Review, Vita Poetica, Litbreak, ONE ART, Witcraft and Poetry Breakfast, among others, and is forthcoming in The Stony Thursday Book and MacQueen’s Quinterly. Ping Yi lives in Singapore with his spouse and their son.

Steve

With apologies to H. Melville 1

Consider, if you will, a cliff.

Consider a cliff sheer and white, that variety of limestone which, if this yarn were set in another age and locale, would have suggested enormous financial opportunity for any industrialist with a modicum of business acumen – but this clearly not being the case we return to the present – and which shone unabashed as an ivory Fortress, its origin as sea- based discharge no slur upon its inherent grandeur.

Consider the environs of the aforementioned – the azure blue sky thinning with the encroachment of dusk, the searing solar disk but a timid bather wetting its toes in the chill of lapping waves, the shrill cries of nimble seafowl punctuating the air as they slip indifferent between layers of thermal consistency.

Consider the evidence of an incident most unique – the irregular flattening of vegetation atop the cliff the localisation of which would suggest some creature, not necessarily human though most definitely possessive of animalistic locomotion, were carrying itself away from the hinterland and in a direction that would at some point result in intimate contact with murky waters. Consider also the plaintive vocal pleas for assistance, assistance of any form, of any quantity and quality, to be directed towards the issuer of said pleas, pleas which merge discordantly with the avian cries in disastrous requiem. Consider further the slavering monstrosity of Nature, all gleaming claw and chipped fang, an un-Darwinian perversion part ursine, part bovine, part dracontine, perched snarling upon the ledge of that very cliff.

Consider Steve, hanging precariously off a twig growing out of the cliff.

*

Steve, a mediocre barbarian whose stock we could identify as being of the Nordic persuasion, had not anticipated the travails of his day to consist mainly of being suspended off a two- hundred-foot drop to oblivion. He had commenced the drowsy morning in customary barbaric manner – guttural curses upon awakening face-deep in fetid mud, ritualistic flailing of arms upon stumbling over knobbly tree roots and thrashing through knife-edged bushes, with ceremonial swim in a pungent glacial swamp immediately following. His itinerary then proceeded to include futile attempts at ensnaring a portion of the morning meal, the morning meal having scampered into the most convenient hole in the ground within ten yards of his stealthy approach. Thus frustrated, not to mention professionally humiliated had there been other members of a similar vocation to witness his accomplishment or lack thereof, Steve in the hot midday sun solicited shelter and comfort from a dank cavern half a mile to the north.

1 Being a respectful facsimile of the literary works of Mr Herman Melville.

This connects us to our previous narrative, since the cavern in question was in fact the exclusive abode of the vile monster, unwilling to surrender the shelter and comfort so requested. Its response to the impolitic intrusion necessitated Steve’s rapid removal of his person from the premises and resulted in the ensuing cross-terrain pursuit during which Steve discarded the majority of his tools of trade.

Reasoning that a creature of such size could not possibly be expected to remain buoyant upon immersion in water, Steve in a rare show of brilliance promptly headed towards the coast and in a compensating lack of the same quality ascended the cliff. He then reached the edifying conclusion that the monster had no intention of leaving terra firma before he did, the realisation occurring at approximately the same time he reached the edge. Losing his balance as his pounding feet sent a torrent of crumbling rock scattering downwards, Steve briefly took to the skies before gravity with a sympathetic brevity claimed him for its own.

*

“Aarrrgh,” uttered Steve.

The star of day was, as established, in the diurnal process of retiring beneath the aquatic comfort of languid evening, having borne silent and involuntary witness to the unrehearsed perambulations of Steve, hapless athlete. The bitter roar of impatient waters lunged and receded beneath the ghostly cliff, like a would-be pilferer torn between wealth in potentia and shackles sans doubt, drilling a pulsating beat into Steve’s auditory senses. Steve’s forelimbs embraced the twine protuberance with fervent passion for Steve’s life, this latter being the object under threat of theft. Steve’s hindlimbs in concert and with equal lust sought purchase upon shale face of lime, though the white shopkeeper proved shy or else reluctant to part with the desired goods. Repeated negotiation yielded but token showers of powdery rejection, delay in sales transaction brought gradual torrents of stinging salt across Steve’s brow.

Steve paused, hesitant to further challenge the branch over its life-preserving tenacity. He ransacked his mental store of cunning stratagems and ingenious devices, but his hasty pilferage yielded experiences short of the hanging-helplessly-off-cliffs variety. Steve bravely entertained the notion of oscillating himself in hope of a life-preserving hand- or foothold, an idea he readily abandoned when larger fragments began to sheer off the sedimentary edifice. “Aarrrgh,” opined Steve, as yet another lively day draws to a meaningful end.