Hans Theys


Under the sea!

Bedrich Eisenhoet to all arrant knaves, shameless whippersnappers and jolly swashbucklers!


Greetings! Bedrich Eisenhoet, the Toothless Bluebottle of Wormwood Mountain, greets you from a lost island in the Indian Ocean. Greetings! I cannot swim at all, though I do nothing but snorkelling about among the sharks and every day I climb to the bottom of the sea with crampons on my diving boots and a lot of lead in my pockets. This cabin stinks and every morning my back sticks to the itching mattress because of the damp weather, but I don't smell it and I don't care, for the Portuguese of War is a fact! Yambo! Don't panic if your helmet suddenly fills up with water, for the flexible rubber border around your neck bends to the inside if the pressure is too low and bends to the outside if the pressure is too high, which simply means that you have to pump a lot if any water comes gushing in. Yambo! The deeper you dive, the higher the pressure gets and the more you have to pump, until suddenly you cannot pump anymore, not even with both arms, so that you suddenly want to climb to the surface, without any air, which doesn't really work out because the water that rolls against the rocks keeps pushing you back! Yambo! Some tiny rubber rings and the finger of a kitchen glove round the shaft: no more water in the pump! Only a little bit of condensation in the helmet! Quickly fixed with some wondrous device cut out of a tin can! A new iron ring for the strings that tie the helmet to the lead belt and two leaden ears for the helmet because it keeps on floating anyway! Shabaritch! This means walking on the bottom of the sea! Without any of the intricate instruments of the olden days!
I walk into the blue water with my heavy equipment and I sing the song of shameless whippersnappers, for today we're dancing over the corals and tomorrow in space!

June 10th 1990