Pot Luck by Geoffrey Speechly

Pot Luck - Note – For those interested in chronology, there are certain anomalies in the following tale, which I have allowed in the cause of literary enthusiasm.

 

“Brrrhg, moltmooclick and nolliclockular” said the – well, I’m not quite sure what to call him, or possibly her. It was about 3 billion years ago, and if you had a spaceship, though of course they hadn’t been invented then, from its position hovering over the North Sea, you would have seen a two-legged creature, with a couple of arms and a rather odd shaped head, scampering about near what we now know as Southend but at that time its muddy beach was attached to Antwerp. He was accompanied by a large group of his fellows and fellowettes.

Let’s give him a name  - O’Smith -  you can Google it if you wish. He was head of a group whose speciality was the production of prgghnitin, a mixture of malted barley and other ingredients. In the backwoods of Eastern Europe many generations previously, thirsty farmers had found that putting the otherwise inedible remains of certain plants in one of their famed clay pots, when left until the moon had ripened four times, the resultant liquor abated the rigours of the Balkan winter appreciably.

However, a  tide of immigrants from further East, searching for better lives and fleeing from the dreaded mingurians, coupled with an admittedly illogical belief that West is Best, forced O’Smith  and his people, men, women, pots and deep-remembered recipes, to where they were at the beginning of my story. Unknown to them, the great gods of Tecton had woken from their slumber.

O’Smith’s oracular pronouncement may now be revealed in its awful and prophetic accuracy, for he had a dream. He had been praying that somehow they might be spared from the coming hordes and in the days and weeks and years to come, Southend was separated from Antwerp forever. The North Sea, now home only to cod, mackerel and Whitstable Natives, was there to stay.

 But this was not the end of their journeys, for them, the sun still shone in the West, dreams still peopled their nights  The eruption of the Angles, Saxons, Danes, Romans Vikings, all of whom had mastered sea travel, fought for blood and booty and finally become the English was in time a dagger at O’Smith’s descendant’s people’s heart. Once again, the now many tribes went West, to the large, green, fertile and beautiful Island where corn and maize could grow and the pots could be filled and work their magic, the men were strong and eloquent and the women smiled and the children  laughed, and all was well in the island of Poteen.

(First Published in a Hightown Writers Anthology A Book of Delights 2016)