Where is Deji Akintilo [Fabio Romani]?
I saw Fabio Romani the other day, recently. He was kind enough to enter my submarine on his long journey, unknown to me then, to the Land of the Forgone. He was indeed a Jolly Sailor who showed me a thing or two about being at sea during our meeting. However, he had never been on-board a submarine. He inspected my submarine and what he saw impressed him. He asked me,
“Is this where you launch your mutinous torpedoes and cruise missiles from?” hiding a bit of anger under his sunny disposition. I was too shy or embarrassed to answer.
My offering was to give him a grand and informed tour of the ocean’s bed and the sheer panorama did all the talking with its variegated splendour. Then I took him to the Davy Jones Locker’s rendezvous. When we both entered the rendezvous, it surprised him to see a third fellow there, another outstanding sailor who did not want to be disturbed. They exchanged brief greetings as if invisible to each other. The Locker was too cold for liveliness, and people do not elect to live there; it’s Adam’s Punishment or Cap’n Blood’s Punishment; Fabio was there for the former, I was there for the latter.
A heavy silence loomed over us like wet shadow. It seemed he had not much to say to me. Before then he might have scolded or lectured me. I then presented him with a bottle of Olololo, the best rum you could find in the Caribbean or any sea beyond. Fabio accepted the drink and inspected me as if he would never see me again. He would not.
“Your sails will forever be rough, over lands and seas and especially underwater, mate,” he said, praying for me
“Yohana and Amen!” I shouted in response.
“And to myself, may eternity be ready,” he said.
“Amen, O ruggedest,” I said.
My moment of understanding had come, and it subjected me to a thorough humbling. It was a cold but reverent moment. Afterwards, he downed three generous shots of rum and stood up with a slight yawn.
“Awa, where is the Great Gang Way?” he asked.
I pointed in a vague direction and led the way. I took him on a long walk to the Great Door that opened onto the Great Gang Way. We could hear muffled noises emanating from it. Merriment was going on behind the Door, but I didn’t want to know about it. I would not go near the Great Door; I stood far from it while he proceeded. But like a genuine man of the sea and an ocean current tested sailor, he approached the Door without qualms, and it slowly opened, letting clear sounds of merriment into the chambers of the Locker but it suddenly went silent as if for him and then crossed the Gang Way to the other side.
As the Great Door closed, the sound of more considerable merriment exploded. Time had separated us, only time. Water ran away from my eyes and kept running and kept running. Fabio had taken the exceptional step of many to join the Foregone Travellers of the Sea, a great finality to a great vocation.
Meanwhile, I didn’t spend long at Davy Jones Locker rendezvous, even though I was in confinement there never to leave. No prison guards were there, so I left it in a hurry. I had an ocean to explore submerged with the Locker only being a rendezvous. I intend to come to the surface soon.
Rest in Peace, O Fabio, Grand Matelot of the Seas.
The Forgone Are Forever…
Be good, not lucky.