Curiosity is a terrible curse

Long past the time that had done him his finest work, an old friend was offered a most unusual commission. A man - old himself, and bent - had thrown his ropes, tied up, and destroyed all his maps. He was going nowhere.

THis man found a cottage and began to empty his boat bit by bit into his new dwelling. To do it he rented a small van and a local lad to help him pack it and unpack it again later. There was memorabilia from all over the world: elephant's toes and emu feathers and hornback shells and it all tumbled out of the boat in the arms of the lad and into the truck. It took three loads because the truck was a wee bit small for the job, but cheap, and no complaints just an observation, they came down to the last load. In it, was a teak fridge, True story, a wooden fridge. the local lad felt it odd. The old man answered the expression:

During the shrimp boom in the Celebes all those years ago there was a lot of money and a lack of trust in the local finance industry. THe shrimp farmers were worried the local currency would bottom out, in the parlance of the times, and sunk all of their rupiah into kitchen appliances. They didn't trust paper money in the long haul, not even if it were green backed and stupid. SO they bought appliances.

They had hair dryers and toasters and microwave ovens, but the really prized appliance was the refridgerator. The only problem in Celebes that day of the year being that they didn't have enough ready power (they used a small generator) to use their appliances. SO the fridges and everything else was more or less just sitting there. It was nothing but stored wealth.

Anyway, with the fact of the matter being that fridges were so vaunted, but yet useless, it occured to one of the shrimp farmers to order a teak fridge from one of the local artisans. All told, it is only a small stretch to go from a useless but potentially useful fridge to one that is useless altogether as a fridge. That being true, the shrimp farmer in question had a teak fridge made. He was very proud of his teak fridge and invited people over to marvel at it. It was a very beautiful teak fridge in a way that you might imagine a teak fridge could be.

The man in our story, with the boat aground and the cottage to be filled, heard about this teak fridge and thought it sounded amazing. He wanted to see the teak fridge. So he asked about it. But it seemed the farmer was away. They all spent a lot of time in Korea during those days because that was where a shrimp farmers would buy his sacks of powdered oxygen which is a stark necessity if you haven't got enough wind powered aerators to keep the little crustaceans full of lung, so as to speak, and not gasping their hours away. So it turned out the fridge owner was in Korea getting his powdered oxygen supplies.

ANd again. ANd again. Whenever this man in our story called to see the teak fridge one of the other farmers would tell him about Korea and oxygen. This took months for our man. But eventually he managed to corner the returned teak fridge owner and forced him at the barrel of a load of liquid expletives to offload the fridge. It was a major coup for a man suddenly obsessed with the whole idea of this fridge.

The man in our story was so eager to find a place for the fridge he loaded his boat and set sail. It was weeks and months at the whim of his own skill and that of the sea before he landed, found his cottage and had his fridge unloaded in the last round of this little van. The terrifying thing though, was the cottage was at the crest of the hill and like the old van that it was it's clutch gave and it rolled aways and the fridge got beat against the back doors and suffered quite a fright.

They eventually loaded the fridge and amid the scowls and the tears of the newcomer and his well-wisher of a lad, and the brandishing of the fridge, it was all in need of a little repair. And this is where the commission came in and how I came to know of the man with the boat now at anchor that became sorrier each day in that dirty harbour out there.

The commission was to repair the broken hinge and one panel of the freezer compartment of the teak fridge that had come from the Celebes shrimp farmer. The old friend of mine may not be the artisan he once was himself but age gives you a way with minding people. He took a look at the fridge and the sea-farer and never said a word edgeways but yes and the cost of it all. He never asked the wheres and whyfores, just fixed hinge and panel.

This all wasn't so long ago although I believe the man might have died yet, and I drive past the cottage near daily. So I wonder if the fridge is inside. I presume it is. Certainly his boat is gone. Lost in the wheezer that sent Marty Engels boat down too.

I wish I knew more about that fridge though it's a damn shame about the boat. Curiosity is a terrible curse for some.