Nobody’s warnings to him of impending doom had been slightly delayed by his remote location; however, Gray–beard’s waterproof mobile phone soon rang underwater, and he listened, amazed, as instructions were given to proceed to the ninja base across the bay, ending with hurry mate! and then click!.

“But wait!” cried Graybeard to the deadened line,
“The mermaid beckons from her realm divine,
And I’ve no boat to cross these waters wide!”
While agents’ sedans reached the shoreline’s spine.

“Wait, hold it,” said Graybeard into a dead line, “The mermaid mate, and I don’t even have a boat!”

Six MI6 cars skidded on the sand,
Some sliding deep in Neptune’s water-land;
“These agents never learned to park,” he mused,
As toward the pier his escape he planned.
He climbed up onto the pier just in time to see six grey MI6 sedans pulling up to the beach and screeching to a halt, some of them slipping on into the water. Why can’t these guys ever learn how to park?

He walked, not ran, amid the boating throng,
Took someone’s beer and strolled calm along;
His diving gear he shed with casual grace,
While seeking swift escape where he’d belong.

Graybeard didn’t run, but walked, for they didn’t know what he looked like, and because many boaters were milling about. He calmly grabbed a beer from someone’s boat, took off some of his diving equipment, and looked around for the fastest boat that he could steal or borrow forever.

“Why did I chase this TOE?” he pondered there,
Yet knew this Grail drew knights to do and dare;
“We temporal warriors must seek the truth!”
While agents swarmed the pier with searching stare.

They’d found him through their Google’s searching eye,
As temporal knights must sometimes swim or fly;
The cosmic truth of Everything at stake,
While mermaids deep below still wonder why.

Why did I get involved with this TOE stuff, already knowing that he had had to since it was the most ultimate quest of all: the Holy Grail. We are the knights of the temporal!
He picked up his pace when he saw the agents swarming onto the pier and checking everyone out. They must have Google-unEarthed me, he surmised.

“Excuse me,” Graybeard murmured with a smile,
As someone’s speedboat he did swift beguile;
“It’s life or life confined!” He puttered slow,
Till Bond-like looks betrayed him after while.

“Excuse me,” Graybeard said politely, as he bumped someone off their speed boat, “it’s life or life in confine–ment!” He puttered away slowly, but MI6 suspected him because he looked like James Bond.

The agents loosed their tranquilizing rain,
But Graybeard caught and threw them back again;
Some MI6 took unexpected naps,
While through the jet-ski crowd he carved his lane.

They all ran to the end of the pier wildly firing tranquilizer darts. Graybeard was good at darts and so he threw them back, giving some zzzzs to a couple of them, and then pushed full throttle ahead through a group of jet-skiers and off into the bay.

’Twas Gray against the grey upon the sea,
As six grey boats gave chase relentlessly;
Through wave-crests wild he drove with reckless force,
While spray-blind eyes behind his goggles flee.

MI6 was unloading something grey and floatable. It’s Gray against grey, he decided.

“They’ll never torture TOE from me,” he thought,
“Though tickled feet might leave my secrets caught;
I’d rather die of laughter than reveal
The cosmic truths that we so dearly bought!”

He looked back after a while, only to see 6 MI6 high-speed grey power boats pursuing him. I’m no match for these, although I do have a lead, but to where…?
He was hitting the speed bumps of the waves and driving as reckless as the boat safety course had told him not to, and was nearly blinded by the spray, but then remembered that he still had his goggles on. They’ll never torture the TOE out of me, but if they tickle my foot I may have to die laughing.

His whole life flashed as hunters closed their chase:
Posts made of force and evolution’s grace,
Of quarks and creatures swimming deep below,
And Many-Worlds pub’s tankard’s foaming face.

After some time, they began closing in on him, with no land in sight, and so his whole life of informational posts began to pass before his eyes: forces, electricity, noumena, sea creatures, quarks, evolution, getting tanked at the Many-Worlds pub… tanks?

“Tanks!” sparked a thought as memory grew clear,
While ocean liner’s bulk did now appear;
Too far to reach as shadows closed their net,
Like night that follows day, now drawing near.

Fuel tanks? A huge ocean liner had just come over the horizon at full speed, but… Graybeard doubted he could get to it for any assistance,
Upon the waves his fate seemed sealed at last,
As MI6 boats swept up so swift and fast;
A kilometer’s gap quick shrinking down—
“Tanks for the memories,” sighed he to past.

for his unrelenting shadows were inexorably approaching, much as the night follows the day, now but a kilometer behind. Tanks for the memories, everyone, he sighed.

Three-quarters of his fuel then he cast
Upon the waves, a flare shot through it fast;
Two boats disabled in the fiery show—
“Good try,” he told himself, “but cannot last.”

As they drew near, Graybeard jettisoned three-quarters of his fuel and shot a flare into both the inflammable and flammable stuff at just the right moment, causing a ruckus and disabling two of the boats. Good try, Graybeard the Pirate, he said to himself, who answered back, but probably not good enough…

While agents rescued comrades from the spray,
Brief moments gained would not long hold at bay
The hunters’ final triumph drawing near,
As fuel gauge crept toward its empty way.

A bit of time had been saved while two agents were being rescued by the other MI6 boats, but it was only going to prolong his agony, and delay for but a short while their ecstasy of capturing him. Back at full speed for 6 more kilometers, but with his fuel now getting low, Graybeard felt the exhilaration of his last hurrah on this Earth as the Feds were closing in on him again.

Six kilometers more of flight he pressed,
While ocean liner’s bulk his vision blessed;
No time to board her decks in secret stealth—
Not Clancy’s plots could save him from this test.

The ocean liner was approaching, very close, but there would be no time for him to sneak aboard unobserved. Not even Tom Clancy could save him now.

“Die or die,” thought he with grim resolve,
As cosmic truths in memory did dissolve;
The TOE worth any price to keep,
Though fatal choice must now his fate evolve.

This is it, he thought, die or die. Ready to protect the TOE at any or all cost,

With final turn he aimed his vessel true,
Straight toward the liner’s mighty hull he flew;
Then lay down in his boat’s prophetic prow
As destiny approached through waters blue.

Graybeard steered his boat with a last minute adjustment toward a head-on collision with the ocean liner… and then laid down in the front of the boat.

Amidships struck, his craft split clean in two,
While fireball marked his seeming end from view;
The agents searched but found no trace remained,
Then saluted their foe with honors due.

The ocean liner struck Graybeard’s boat amidships, breaking it in two, accompanied by a huge fireball explosion of the rear portion that the amazed MI6 agents took as his epitaph. They stayed and searched the area, but found no trace of Graybeard. They put a hand over their hearts and saluted the brave ToeQuestor, then headed back to shore in disgrace.

(But here we cannot leave you cliffside hung—
For Graybeard’s tale is not yet fully sung;
The MI6 retreated, heads hung low,
While somewhere else a victory bell was rung…)
(A cliffhanger; no, I couldn’t do that to you!)

“Two tanks for memories,” through bubbles spoke
Our Graybeard as he donned his diving cloak;

While flames above turned sea to crimson light,
He slipped beneath where safer waters broke.
“That’s two tanks for the memories,” said Graybeard, with bubbles coming out of his mouth as he assembled the last of his scuba gear, tanks, fins, and mouthpiece, under–water, noting the raging firestorm up above.

Through fathoms thirty deep he made his way,
While up above the hunters went astray;
Two kilometers through the silent deep,
Until upon sea’s floor he paused to stay.

He swam on, thirty feet submerged, for a kilometer or two, to vacate the area, then sat down on the bottom of the sea.

There amber fluid (known as beer to some)
Brought toast to TOE through waters cool and numb:
“May truth stay safe from hands that would destroy!”
While fish swam past and wondered why he’d come.

He drank an amber fluid (“beer“, in English). Here’s to the TOE! May it never fall into the wrong hands.


When air ran low he shed his weights at last,
Rose gasping through the waves his flight had passed;
The landmark Austin promised (miles, not keys!)
Lay four leagues hence across the waters vast.

Graybeard swam on, using up the last of the air of his tanks, threw off his counterweights, and surfaced, quite exhausted, and noted the landmark that he’d been told of, still four miles away. (Austin is not really good with kilometers.)

“Too far!” thought he in true Australian style,
“I’m Black Stump distant, every weary mile;
Past Back of Bourke and on to Bullamanks—
Where distance stretches time’s elastic dial!”

Too far, he thought, I’m as good as in a Black Stump (far away) or the Back of Bourke (the middle of nowhere), Bullamanks even (way beyond the preceding destinations)!

A ninja rowed from nowhere: “G’day mate!
Fifth degree I give your escape’s great rate!”
“Cut strine,” sighed Graybeard, “need some zeds to catch;“
“Too right!” came back across their rowing’s state.

A small rowboat appeared out of nowhere with a robed black ninja waving to him, “G’day mate; good on ya! I give you fifth degree.”
“Cut the strine; I need some zeds (zzzzs).
“Too right!”

“Did Nobody dispatch this putt-putt craft?”
“To Clancy’s house,” the ninja sweetly laughed,
“For better training came your warning late—
You king of reefs!” while Graybeard merely chaffed.

“Well, hooly-dooly,” Graybeard answered, “did Nobody send you? And are we going to the ninja center in this putt-putt?”
“Yes, and no. We go first Tom Clancy house; make more notes.”

“Too tired for kafuffling,” Graybeard sighed,
As toward the outpost slow their vessel plied;
“No man seek rowboat, none be island here,”
The Master spoke as darkness joined their ride.
“I’m about to go berko! Why wasn’t I warned of MI6 just a few minutes earlier?” “No man look for rowboat and no man be island,” said the 5th degree Grand Master.
“Whatever you say, PHD.”
“It better training for great one, Beard of Gray ninja-san, king of reefers! And you love mermaid!”

“I give up, I’m too tired for kafuffling.”
Tom Clancy wished them well and they rowed toward the ninja outpost.
Darkness fell as they entered the training ground, and Graybeard was going to sleep well, dreaming of fish women.

“Now read the bottom line,” came morning’s test,
“Acuvision,” read Graybeard, still unrest;
“Two eyes, not one, though pirate I might be—
Your underwear shows holes, I do protest!”

“Eye test time, Growbeard“ said the ninth degree Grand Master.
“Shuteye time,” protested Graybeard.
“Please read line bottom of chart“.
“Printed by Acuvision 2005.”
“You have good eye.”
“Two, two eyes; do you think I lost one as a pirate?”
“No, sorry Grayman. Please close ears; what see?”
“I see you are going to end up in the ICU!”
“Now-now, Greatbeard. We teach you mind’s eye.”
“OK, I’ll see you I to eye.”
“That better. Still seeing mermaid?”
“We broke up, fin-ished, due to my imminent death.”
“Be friend; we teach you seeing in dark.”
“I already have x-ray vision, and, hey, why is your underwear so ragged? What if you have to go to the hospital, like real soon!”
“You fine sight full of seaweed, but good eye too.”
“Two eyes.”
“I give you four eyes.”
“I don’t need glasses.”

“If TOE-wise Mary, blind from birth sublime,
Should see banana painted blue in time,
Would she know true from false?” the Master posed;
“She knew fruit’s essence!” wisdom’s perfect rhyme.

“What if TOE scientist woman blind since birth named Mary regain sight? Know she what color banana is?”
“Well, I thought not, and since I know her, I tried to trick her and showed her a blue banana…“
“She say not banana.”
“How do you know that?”
“While blind she knew EVERYTHING about banana!”
“Well, I’ll be darned. Teach me more.”

“See woman on the moon?” the Master tried;
“See you much later,” Graybeard’s wit replied;
For after death and mermaids, chase and flight,
Sweet rest called stronger than all truths descried.

“See you woman on moon?”
“See you later.”

Through Aussie slang and wisdom’s playful dance,
Through ninja training’s odd circumstance,
The deeper truths of sight and knowledge played
While exhaustion dimmed sweet learning’s chance.