Sunday 7 October 2012

The Crab Doctor and the Lobster:
A Maritime Film Noir 4



Scene 4: Langoustine, Double Agent?


The doctor had medications, but he preferred irony. Crustaceans were a tough crew. He and Langoustine made a svelte but dangerous couple.

*

Irony was the main discursive mode in the North Sea. Thick carapaces were known to have been cut through by it. It was lipstick as hacksaw.

*

It was lipstick as hacksaw, eyeshadow as machete. Langoustine was a fully armed siren. In lobster terms she was Theda Bara, Gypsy Rose Lee.

*

Queen of the Prawn Fatales, Langoustine held court in darkened sea hotels with raking light. Not even the doctor knew which side she was on.

*

The doctor was checking through his files when he discovered a small pink claw between J and K. It might have been a clue. Or just a claw.

*

Was it a clue? Was it a claw? Was it conceptual art? It might just have been a typo. Langoustine didn't care either way. It was late.

*

The sea is dark, the view ever murky, except on those spring days when the sun slots in like a blade, wrote the doctor with a trembling claw.

*

Sometimes, wrote the doctor, it is as if I had spent my whole life under the sea. Langoustine gave him a wary look. It was ebb tide again.

*

In the depths of his crab pocket the doctor discovered a white pill. Meanwhile Langoustine was writing a note. No connection. None.

*

It was safest, the doctor surmised, to carry on walking sideways. In any case he had little choice.

*


To be continued...



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