by John Muir
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THE SHELL GAME
At their age there seemed little of great importance to talk about. They were too old to change the world, yet old enough and with sufficient of life’s experiences to reminisce with some valid authority.
Clive was visiting Paul for the first time in many years. Previously they both had wives who were both now deceased.
“You seem to have changed things a lot inside the house since I was last here. I presume you did that after your wife passed,” said Clive.
“Yes. I’m not into doilies, linen curtains and family photos. I like masculine stuff.”
Clive looked around the room and a large glass fronted cabinet attached to the wall caught his attention. Through the glass he saw a large collection of sea shells. He walked to the cabinet for a closer inspection and oohed and aahed at the many diverse shapes and colours inside.
“Where’d you get these?” he asked.
“Did a lot of scuba in my young days,” answered Paul. “Collected a lot of shells, including some pretty rare ones from all around the world. Part of the fun was cleaning and polishing them up, painting them with varnish and identifying what they were. I’ve only got the special ones there. There’s hundreds more in boxes in the garage.”
“You’ve got some real beauts. Gee that one’s great,” he said pointing to a large elongated trumpet shaped shell with its broad opening on one side.
“Oh. That one. I remember it well. I got it when I was diving in Asia. A bit of a long story actually. There’d been quite a bit of navy activity in the bay the day before looking for pirates. And this was the last shell I ever picked up before I gave up scuba diving. I got the biggest fright of my life. I found it near a boat anchor and long chain from one of the more recent slave trade ships.”
“What? Pirate ships and slave traders? Gawd; you’re still the same old bull-shitter aren’t you? You not an archeologist, or a metallurgist. How the hell would you know it was from a recent slave ship?”
“I guessed it when I saw the sharks feasting on the 24 manacled and partly flesh-stripped bodies still attached to the chains.”