Lucian’s True Story: The Door Had Teeth

I am making this up. Our ship sailed into a harbour with excellent shelter. Then the harbour shut its teeth.

Inside the whale, we found a forest. Then a house. An old man came out as though ships fell through his ceiling every afternoon.

His name was Scintharus. He had been swallowed long before us. There was food here. There was land. There was everything we needed, except a way to leave.

We tried digging through the whale’s side. We dug farther than anyone should have to dig through a fish, and found more whale.

So we set the forest burning. Once our prison was dead, we thought, it could no longer keep us. A very clever plan. We congratulated ourselves.

For days, nothing happened. Then the mouth opened less often. The light came in slowly, and went out fast.

A dead whale would close its mouth for the last time. We had set our prison burning with ourselves still inside it.

The jaws opened. We hauled timber into the gap and heaved the beams upright. The light narrowed around us. This time, the teeth stopped.

The whale died. The beams held. Beyond them, the sea moved freely, as if it had never heard of us.

We looped ropes around its teeth and lowered our ship toward the water. Scintharus took the helm. At last, the man who had lived inside a whale could sail away from one.

We escaped. We celebrated. And then we sat beside the whale for three days, because there was no wind.

On the fourth day, a breeze arrived. We put to sea again. I would tell you what happened next, but you might not believe me.