Stories the Enquirer Didn't Print

For Love of Krill

As the fury of the storm breaks over the sole life raft to make it away from the luxury liner Spam Queen, all hope is lost. The baby is ripped from its mother's arms and flung into the depths of the ocean. The parents, rescued soon after, are inconsolable. Years later, by pure coincidence, they hire me to track down a loan shark. In the process, I run across the truth about their son - a story so bizarre even I sometimes don't believe it.

A mere fathom or two below the lifeboat, the baby, Tommy, was caught in the tentacles of a vegetarian octopus. The octopus bore the baby, now turning a lovely shade of blue, to its close friends Orca and Shamu. Naming the strange child Tasbu, they adopted and raised him. Despite a steady diet of krill and kelp, Tasbu grew slowly. At the age of 9 he was rescued by the North Carolina Coast Guard, who found him helplessly flopping about like a beached whale.

With the help of a remarkable lady named Ariel who specialized in this sort of case, Tasbu was able to rejoin human society within a remarkably short period. Tasbu seemed to do best in small, close-knit schools, though he was often a loner. He excelled at water sports. He quickly became captain of his swim and diving teams, and showed a remarkable capacity for sushi consumption. On a diving trip near the Bahamas, Tasbu killed a great white shark with his bare hands and nose.

Turned down by the US Navy S.E.A.L.S. because of vision problems, Tasbu entered the submarine service. Despite an incredible record amassed in a short time span, Tasbu retired after a few years. His record indicates he detested "being under water without getting wet." The boat's doctor insists Tasbu would hold his breath throughout entire missions of several months, noting in the log that this was "a medical miracle".

Rejecting graduate scholarships to Texas A&M in marine biology and computer science, Tasbu now lives off the coast of an obscure Polynesian island, where the natives revere him as a god. While finding this pretty ridiculous, he nevertheless accepts their gifts of food, colas, and pens, upon which he chews "to keep the teeth sharp".


Michael Debinhex, Private Defective

No problem so simple I can't botch it