The holiday cruise is drawing to a close. Many of the cruisers have a clutch of new best-friends-forever friendships. These were easily won and formed in the halcyon days in the far-flung resorts visited on the Liner. They may have been melded over one too many shared jugs of Sangria by the pool. Maybe they were sweated out under a burning sun in the queue waiting for the boats to take them ashore to see the old town. It’s possible that they were the tortured rapture of a shared grievance about cold showers or a badly stocked minibar at the rep’s desk. It’s the last night blues which inevitably sees all these BFFs grappling each other’s shoulders, swearing undying allegience to future get togethers back in the homeland, swigging yet more sangria and swapping phone numbers, Facebook details, and perish the thought, home addresses.

But this was no ordinary cruise it went on for years, the liner filled up with more and more passengers, more and more with complaints, a few too many people grappling other people’s shoulders uninvited, a lot of spilled sangria, and always somebody else’s towel on a favourite sunlounger. Then the rumours started that some Hotshot Captain was going to take the helm and set off on a new course. He was supposedly to take the liner to new beautiful lands with even greener grass to view from the deck. But the grass was astroturf and there’d be a charge for the free sangria. Lots of passengers took their chances, dived overboard, and swam ashore, thrashing through the water to reach unknown lands where ancient pachiderms wandered freely. Those that stayed tried to tolerate the growing number of sangria spillers, towel abusers, and shoulder grabbers. There was a lot of mopping up of spilled drinks to do but not enough moppers. The hotshot captain never showed up…the liner carried on riding the waves through the summber months.

As the summer passed, the new captain was helicoptered in once again, chucking kitbags of money at the cruise company and insisting on taking the helm. He made most of the crew walk the plank and threw the mops overboard. He told the sangria drinkers they’d have to pay for a little blue badge on their towel if they wanted to get a sun lounger by the pool. Indeed, if they didn’t have the badge, they’d have to swim in the bilge below decks.

The sangria drinkers remembered their old new BFFs who’d jumped ship to be with the pachiderms and started manning the lifeboats. Without a compass, they headed in different directions and hoped for the best. Others remained steadfast, even mocking those in the lifeboats, for leaving them behind. Meanwhile, the hotshot captain steered the liner on a perilous course, one that took the vessel into uncharted waters where trolls swam among floating mountains of ice and not a pachiderm was to be seen…to be continued…