A rising tide lifts all boats…
…into the gargantuan maw of megayacht Y721, the devourer of all lesser boats!
Where it had come from was a mystery.
The bald oligarch who had it built in the throes of divorce owned it, but could not control it.
The workers who had built it had no part in it now.
The workers who had died building it had not lingered over running water to haunt it.
The sailors who crewed it were terrified of it.
The captain who ran it was a mindless thrall,
who disappeared for days at a time into his cabin
where he would take neither bread nor water.
Only the engineers seemed to know anything.
Deep in their oilsweet lairs they would gather,
jumpsuits unzipped down to the top of their pubes,
and mutter of old sea stories, of Briny Maw,
of Llyr the Ever Moving.
Y721 wasn’t picky, but had preferences.
Anything afloat that crossed its wake was fair game:
Tankers, tugs, or whalers;
Cargo ships like floating cities;
Cruise liners ripe with the rich and the dying.
But best of all were other yachts, and
Best of best of all were yachts with oligarchs aboard.