Two fishermen first saw me, they saw my feet sticking up from the wet beach like clams washed up on shore, and they were able to draw me up from the beach's womb inch by inch, slowly up through the sand and then through the water and the waves, washing off the yellow grains of sand like insects from my skin and I was fished up like a giant white naked seal into the boat and the fishermen blushed and laughed like small girls as I was already a fully grown woman, they couldn't believe their luck, but then they saw my eyes and they were shocked because my eyes were two foggy gooey white globes with a radiant tadpole in each swimming around like a trapped sperm trying to get out before settling and cloning itself like a cell, mutating and blossoming into irises, and all this in a matter of minutes, and all this scored by the fishermen's husky and salty voices going Yuck!, Golly!, Damn! and Yikes! and well aboard the vessel I was washed off with a hose, dressed in wool blankets and an orange raincoat and lifted onto a sofa, just left of the captain, and he yelled words like Ho! and Hep! and Yee-Haw! and had a white beard and a nicotine tinted yellow mustache and a giant pink shell that he used as a pipe, coughing and laughing, cursing the waves, swearing at the wind, very much a seaman of the 18th century though with a mean case of hubris, ranting endlessly about whales, octopuses and mermaids, Har-har-har! foreign seaports, exotic jungle queens and Chinese opium dens, Chuckle-chuckle!, and me, the Woman of the Sand, the Virgin of Labrador Island, the Child of Salty Waters, Ey! Ey! Ey!, he was a mess, a bewildered ancient cartoonish rum-drinking mess – Land Ho! Land Ho! he screamed, and I understood land was in sight, and sure enough there it was, a harbor equivalent of Captain Ahab here on my right, a ramshackle, grey, foggy seaport full of gold diggers with wolves and icepicks, depressed women and runaway teens, everyone crowding around as I was hoisted by my feet on to the dock, everyone oh-ing and ah-ing at the sight of my blueish white skin and wild eyes, everyone wanting to touch and grab me, but no one daring to go that far, and as they weighted and measured me I tried to intervene with a lame "Oh, Come On!" to no effect, and I knew that my fate was sealed, I knew I would be sold off to the horniest and richest fucker around and gang-raped by his pack of sex depraved trappers, and I tried to think of funny Seinfeld episodes and comfortable 20th century philosophical topics, but to no use, I was gagged, hung and sold for a piece of gold the size of half a Breath Mint to a scruffy meat grinder, and he brought me back to his barrack and towed me to an iron table, sat down beside me and said "Maintenant que je vous ai sauvés de la baise cul éternelle que vous aver de m'accord un souhait", – Jesus, les French! – ("Now that I have saved you from eternal butt fucking you have to grant me one wish") and sad and low as I felt I answered with a sheepish "Oui?", and he said "you have to take me to where you came from, to The Future, away from Dickens and Blake, away from greasy beds, saturated fat, bad music and boring poetry, away from shitty pottery and dirty streets", so the next night we snuck down to the harbor with only the lights of the Moon and the torches of the local Beef Jerky plant guiding our way, and we strapped ourselves to each our anchor, locked hands, said "Vers l'avenir!" (To the Future) and jumped down into the cold Atlantic Ocean, both knowing the future was as far away as a microwaved burrito.