(Cont.)
One day, Samson went down to the penteconter, where he met a little mermaid who was a daughter of the Sea People. He fell in love with her at first sight, perhaps because he inherited some instincts of his earthly father, who was himself a mechanical merman: for this damsel, named Hansina Christiana, was also a fully robotic waitress.
Then Samson came up, and told his father and mother, Merman and Adamah, and said: “I have just set eyes on the most enchanting monster of the deep: she is a mermaid of the Sea People, and she lives in the waters surrounding that penteconter of theirs, which is docked in Paumanok, just a seahorse-ride from Eldorado. Please go and get her for me to wife.”
Then Adamah answered her son Samson, saying: “Is there not a good woman among the landlubbers of the caravansary, for you to wed? One who is flesh and blood, with a gorgeous head of hair; not a gal who is manmade with electrical circuitry and metallic fish-scales? For we are eager to please the Volcano; and it was so hard for your earthly father and I to conceive, due to Merman’s aquatic nature, when we were yearning for a child of our own. Now, if you attempt to meld with a damsel whose womb yields caviar, and who has just one flapping tail instead of two legs, it may prove equally, tragically difficult for you to spawn multitudes.”
And Samson said: “But I am in love, and I must marry my Hansina. I care not that she is a little mermaid.”
Now his father and mother did not know that this firm persuasion of their son came from the Volcano. For he was instilled with the spirit of the wild man.
Then Samson went down with Adamah and Merman to Paumanok, and they were heading toward the port of the penteconter; but, on the way, behold: an enormous all-white sperm whale swam against them.
And the spirit of the volcano of potential entered mightily into Samson, and he tore the whale in twain as he would have torn the veil of a temple. But, he made sure that his parents closed their eyes, before he did this, so that they would not know about his awful predisposition to break forth uncontrollably.
After that, he went down to the shoreline and talked with Hansina; and she pleased Samson well.
Then a twelvemonth later, when the term of their engagement was filled, Samson returned to take Hansina as his bride; and, on the way to Paumanok, he passed that same place where, one year ago, he had ravaged the great white whale: and, behold, its carcass was still there, torn in half, and among its innards he found five hundred barrels of sperm oil, plus an abundance of ambergris. He also fashioned a whalebone corset for his wellbeloved.
So Samson stored these things in his traveling ark. And when he was climbing out of the carcass, he discovered additionally (this was most likely something that the beast had swallowed when it was alive, and had not had time to digest before meeting its end) a grail that was filled with blood-red wine.
Thus he went on sipping from the grail, and its liquid seemed never to diminish; and when he came to his father and mother, he passed it to them, and they did drink: but he did not tell them that he had found the grail in the leviathan’s cadaver.
So his father Merman went down to meet this mermaid that his son had betrothed: and Samson made there a feast, and invited everyone in the whole world to come and dine, and dance and play; for, that was what young lovers did, in the days before the Puritans outlawed merriment.
And it happened that five hundred guests attended the banquet. And Samson stood and tapped his sword against his glass to capture everybody’s attention (he was still drinking from the grail that he had found, which remained mysteriously brimful), and he said to them all: “I will now put forth a riddle: if one of you can certainly decode it within seven days of this feast, and find out its meaning, then I will give that winner five hundred barrels of sperm oil. But if none of you can figure out the answer, then you all must chip in and pay for the cost of the medial operation that shall convert my nature into an electronic octopus. For I wish to be able to procreate children with my bride here, Hansina Christiana, who is a mermaid and a battery-powered lady-servant of the Ocean People.”
And all five hundred of the banquet’s attendees answered as one, and said: “Put forth thy riddle, that we may hear it.”
And he said unto them: “OK, here’s the riddle:
“Who consubstantiates leviathan? Who makes a covenant with his corpse, and then offers companions to banquet upon him? What mythological hero found salvation in the belly of a great fish that had swallowed him; then took the cup, and shared it with his comrades, saying, ‘I will not drink the fruit of the vine, but this is the blood of BAAL’s final testament, which is shed for all to cleanse from sin.’ (For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.) A couple other quick questions for you folks: Why, without bloodshed, is no remission? How can blood cleanse? Wherefore is not all flesh the same flesh, nor all blood the same, though the life is in the blood: yet some lifeblood is like fine wine, in that it ages well and beats death. And why one kind of physique for men, another for lions, another for holy ghosts and robots? Why does the Demiurge refashion celestial bodies from bodies terrestrial? Is the soul nonperishable or destroyed by hellfire? Why sow in weakness and raise in power?
“Well, that’s my riddle. You all have seven days to answer.”
And after three days passed, with everyone deep in thought, the wedding feast’s partygoers had not yet found the solution. Then it happened that on the fourth day, a gang of them came and said unto Samson’s wife: “Mrs. Anderson, entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle. If you fail to do this for us, we will burn thee and thy entire household with fire. For you seem to have invited us to your wedding just to make fools of us, and to force us to pay for your husband’s soul-and-species transformation procedure.”
Hansina Christiana then went to visit her new husband Samson in his private sanctum, and she wept before him, and said: “You must hate me; you don’t love me at all. For you have put forth this riddle at our wedding feast, and yet you never told me its answer.”
And he said unto her: “But that’s because it’s a secret. I have not even dared to reveal the solution in my prayers, when I meditate upon the volcano of potential. Do you understand how hard that is? Consider it now – choose any notion, and just try to abstain from thinking about it: The mere will to do so is enough to pre-botch your intent, since the prohibited thought is one with the resolve to avoid it. But I have managed to conceal my riddle’s answer, even from the mental surveillance forces of my own Creator; so, I’m sorry if this sounds mean, but: Why should I tell you?”
Yet Hansina continued to weep and beg and nag, the whole week long. And then, when the seventh day arrived, which was the finish line of Samson’s riddle challenge, he finally gave in and told the solution to his wife, because she kept bugging him. And immediately she went and blabbed the answer to everyone.
So, before the sun went down on that last day, the gang that had earlier threated Samson’s wife now came to Samson and said: “We have the solution to your mystery. Here’s the answer: Blessed is the monster that the elohims devour so the broken LORD may have a softer fall.”
And Samson’s eyes grew wide, and his countenance darkened as he heard this; and he said unto them: “If ye had not joyridden my sea pony, ye had never known this wisdom.”
And the spirit of the Volcano came upon him, and he dashed forth to Nantucket, where the gang that had trounced him was from, and he burst in through the doors of their whaling companies, their fisheries, merchants, and fishmongers, and he took by force five hundred barrels of sperm oil, and gave these unto them which expounded his riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went back to the port of Nantucket, into the gang’s headquarters, and Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the structure stood: the one with his right hand, and the other with his left. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the headquarters fell, and all the merchandise therein was damaged.
And the robo-mermaid Hansina Christiana, Samson’s wife, was gifted to one of the guests who had attended their wedding feast.
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