“Help me, Ratu!” Jope called out in the dark, slapping the surface of the water with open hands as a wave picked up his skinny black body and tumbled him across the sharp coral reef. “Ouch! That hurts!” Jope screeched, trying to grab his new sore spots and still keep his chin above the roiling salt water.
“Ratu!” Jope called helplessly into the night, his nose and ears full of water, knowing one more wave would fill the rest of him. “I can’t swim!”
Ten seconds later, a wave that had been gathering steam for some two thousand kilometers flipped Jope upside down and sent him headfirst toward the bottom of a deep spot between the reef and the island. “Ratu,” Jope attempted to say again, but he painfully discovered that trying to talk while submerged was only good for filling your lungs with stinging sea water.
“Aaaaak!” Jope tried to say, but only topped off his lungs and slowly drifted toward the bottom, straight as a pencil, until his head bumped the sand. A big crab scuttled away. It was probably a good thing it was pitch black, for the crab would have literally scared the crap out of the pirate. Jope was deathly afraid of crabs, especially creepy talking and singing ones, like in the movie previews of The Little Mermaid.
Jope stayed in this position, upside down like a piece of sea grass, the current from the waves above shifting him to and fro. But just as Jope was beginning to enjoy the peaceful feeling—the tickling at his toes and the funny way his penis bobbed inside his cut-offs—Dakuwaqa the shark-god swam out of the blackness and sat down near his face, a glowing light-blue aura surrounding him.
“I can’t talk,” Jope told him. “I’m underwater.”
“Uh, you are talking, dumbass.” The shark-god pulled a fat cigar from a hidden pocket and struck a long match on the back of a starfish.
“I hate it when people call me names,” Jope whimpered.
“Aw, now you’re gonna cry?”
“Did you come to save me?” Jope fought back tears. “Saving people is what gods do.”
“Boy, I don’t think anyone could ever save you. Take a look around.” The shark-god waved his cigar, its smoke forming a visible line like airplane contrails.
“Do I at least get one last wish?”
“Last wish?” The god cocked his head.
“You know, like before a firing squad shoots you. They have to give you whatever you want.”
“Okay, sure, what the hell,” said the shark-god, taking a big puff and sending a plume of gray smoke toward the surface. “You got one wish, kid.”
“I wish that you’d save me!” Jope heard the pride in his own voice at his cleverness. It wasn’t often he felt clever, especially not in front of a god.
“Yeah, sorry, that’s not going to happen.” The shark-god jammed the cigar back into the corner of his dangerous looking mouth.
“But you said you’d give me a last wish!” Jope was crestfallen.
“Well, I said I’d give you one.” The shark-god casually flicked an ash into an open clam. The gesture occurred with a mild stutter, as though the underwater world worked a little slower than up in the air. “I didn’t say I’d grant it.”
“That’s not fair.” But Jope was used to these sorts of disappointments. He’d been enduring them his entire life. Why should dying be any different? “You aren’t supposed to be an evil god. I made posters of you for my bedroom.”
“All right, all right.” The shark-god snickered and puffed gray swirling smoke. “How ’bout I give you three wishes? You wanna be rich? Have a giant wang?”
Jope kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t falling for the same trick again. He just quietly wafted back and forth, upside-down in the gentle current.
“Ah, you ain’t no fucking fun.” The shark-god stubbed out his cigar in the sandy bottom. “Here you go, pal. Abra-fucking-cadabra!” Dakuwaqa used his deepest shark-god voice, theatrically crossing his muscular arms, nodding his head and blinking hard, like a Baghdad genie.
Jope continued to slowly waft, blinking back at the shark-god.
“Your skinny black ass is saved,” the shark-god pronounced. “And you’re welcome, dumbass!”
As the shark-god turned to swim off, Jope felt a tug on his right big toe. He immediately recoiled, fearing it might be a singing Disney crab, or maybe even one of those bloodthirsty cannibals from Malakula. Jesus, don’t let it be one of those bastards! While some tribes didn’t bother eating anybody unless they had the pleasure of killing and tenderizing him themselves, story had it that the Malakula tribe would eat week-old roadkill covered in flies and wriggling maggots. Jope swooned at the thought.
Whatever was after him had a solid grip around his ankle, and Jope had no leverage to fight. He caught a glimpse of the soles of the shark-god’s feet kicking away, but everything else was murky. Up he went, pulled from above.
“Don’t go! I’ll take it!” Jope called after the shark-god. All the jerking and tugging made him feel like a rag doll in a dog’s mouth. “You can leave me dead, but make me rich. Or give me a giant wang! Something … anything … please, please come back!” But the shark-god was long gone, not a bubble or hint of cheap cigar remaining.
Now that he was dead, Jope prayed that this was just some new god taking him toward the tunnel to Happa Now rather than the beginning of a lurid, cannibal-feeding-frenzy. He went with the flow, not that he had much choice. There was no sound as he broke the surface of the water. Tiny stars twinkled down as if in greeting.
“Hello,” Jope said to the stars, as his flaccid body was dragged across the coarse sand. And then the stars disappeared, eclipsed by a round black object.
Jope liked this part of the journey to Happa Now very much. Back in Suva, the prostitutes charged three whole dollars and still wouldn’t let you kiss them. Not on the mouth anyway. Here, the kiss was free and delivered under the beautiful twinkling stars of a tropical island. Wait, did this mean prostitutes on Happa Now gave away their services and kissed you on the lips? An afterlife with free hookers?
Jope’s wang had not been made huge by the shark-god, but it stood proudly at attention as the kissing went on and on. If only Jope wasn’t dead, he could maybe get the heavenly prostitute to move over a bit and climb aboard his modest pole of love. The tender embrace had created an almost impressive tent under his cut-off jeans.
Jope turned his head to spit up most of the salt water that had caused him to die in the first place. He hoped that wasn’t too much of a turn-off for the hooker. With air filling his lungs, Jope was able to tell the angel whore what he usually told the prostitutes back home: “Please spank me.”
Ratu spit out the water Jope had puked up during the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He grabbed his best friend in the whole world and hugged him tightly, frantically, not caring that Jope’s boner was poking him in the stomach like one of the fatties they used to smoke together when business was good.