By Rhys Hughes

I assumed that the leagues
were vertical
and that the Nautilus dived
precisely that number
down, and not
knowing what a league was
I remained without
concerns, but
then I happened to look up
the word in a
dictionary and my brow
wrinkled in a
frown as profound as the
boundless ocean.
.
A league is approximately
three miles long,
the distance that an average
man can walk in
one hour (he is walking
to see the flowers
of a distant garden?) Pardon
my confusion but
when I worked it out, it was
clearly impossible
for any sealed vessel to drop
20,000 leagues
through the waters of the sea
and put itself to
bed on the slimy abyssal plain.
The deepest trench
is only two and a quarter
leagues down.
.
The Nautilus would pass right
through the Earth
and emerge from the other side
and continue out
into space. The crew would see
only stars through
the porthole windows. No! This
simply couldn’t be
the case. In my haste I must have
misinformed myself.
.
I did the calculations again but to
my dismay they came
out the same way and I now began
to grow angry with
Jules Verne. What a cad! To play
with distance this
way would drive me mad. And so
I turned away from
his books. I learned to cook as an
alternative pursuit
and burned myself once or twice
on bubbling sauce
to be eaten with rice. But this has
nothing to do with
Captain Nemo. It wasn’t his fault.
.
The years swam past
like fish and I forgot my confusion
amid the tides and
surges of everyday life. It was a day
like any other when
the truth erupted inside me, boiling
my mind, bubbling
and bursting: a submerged volcano.
.
20,000 leagues under the sea, yes!
but horizontally! That
was the meaning. And I stopped to
stare dreaming at the
blue sky, another sea above me, the
clouds for ships and
people the fish in the depths, squids
and urchins, whales
of a time and quarrel reefs. Why did
it never occur to me
before? Jules Verne you are forgiven.
Am I forgiven too?
.
(And the walking man finally reaches
the sunken garden
where the anemones bloom)
.

Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
.
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One reply on “20,000 Leagues under the Sea”
Quarrel reefs😂great poem by the irrepressible Mr Hughes. And glad to say I know him
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