"Yellow Submarine: A Short Story"

I was putting a pot of tea onto the oven and whistling to myself while waiting for the others to come. It was almost four o’clock and the lads were coming over for tea, and to discuss how we were going to spend another boring evening. It occurred to me that I may want to eat before John, Paul, and George arrived, so I started to make some toast. While rummaging through the refrigerator for some jam, I hear a knock at the door, but the guests didn’t bother to wait for me to answer (they never do). I hadn’t even had a chance to look up before hearing “Oy! What’re you doin in there Ringo?”
“I was lookin for some jam to spread on me toast. Would you mind takin the water off the stove for tea; it’s whistlin.” George walked behind me and took the pot off the stove and began pouring it into teacups. Meanwhile, I found the jam and started spreading it on the bread.
“Does anyone else want toast?” I asked.
“I do,” said John.
“Me too,” said Paul.
“Me three,” said George, “tea’s ready, too.”
I finished making toast for everyone and settled down to drink my tea. It started raining outside, so the only sensible thing to do would be linger indoors and maybe practice music for our band, but John was not a sensible man. “Look at it pour,” he said. “Let’s go to Marmy’s.” For those of you who don’t know, Marmy’s is the local inn and pub.
“Are you jokin, mate? It’s rainin too hard for me,” Paul whined. “We barely made it indoors to avoid it.”
“I’m game to go,” replied George. “A lil’ rain never hurt nobody.”
“I agree that a lil’ rain don’t hurt nobody” Paul said, “but that’s a lot of rain, it is.”
“I’ll go.” I said. “I’ve been cramped up in here all day and I wanna stretch me legs.”
“Well it’s settled then, isn’t it? Let’s go to Marmy’s,” John said.
“But what about me?” Paul cried, “I don’t want to stay here all by meself.”
“Well then come along, little Pauly,” John taunted. “You can stay or you can come, but we’re going.” With that, Paul sighed and slinked out the door behind me and George. John made sure the door was locked and was the first to run into the rain from the canopy that protected my patio. While George, Paul, and I were trying to stay relatively dry by running from patio to patio, John was getting his white bell-bottoms soaked by jumping from puddle to puddle. By the time we reached Marmy’s, George and I were only somewhat wet, Paul was sloppy wet because he slipped and fell into a soggy lawn, and John was thoroughly soaked. We were fortunate that the rain had prevented many people to want to go to Marmy’s tonight, so the chairs by the fireplace were empty when we arrived.
“Hey there lads, what’re you doin?” Marmy shouted from behind the bar when we began to sit down. “You’re bleedin soaked and you’re gonna dampen me chairs. Get up from there!”
“All right, all right” John said. “You don’t have to get all buggered up.”
“Yeah, Marmy, we’re just tryin to get warm and dry,” I said.
“Let me tell you something about warm and dry,” Marmy said. “I was drier than the desert whene’er I was in the queen’s navy. Those were the days. I was first mate to the famous Captain Finch. Aye! those were the days, indeed.”
“Here he goes again with those tales of his,” George whispered to Paul.
“Aye, he’s lost his bloody marbles, he has,” Paul replied.
“I have not lost me marbles.” Marmy had heard the go between of George and Paul. “Let me tell you lads somethin – it will do you some good to travel the world. Maybe you’ll find the land of submarines. That’s right lads, the land of submarines where life is happy as can be.”
“And where do you find this land of submarines, mate?” John asked with a mocking smile, while Paul, George, and I sniggered at his question.
“Don’t scoff at the land of submarines boys. It’s a perilous journey through the sea. The first thing you need to do is get yourself a submarine so’s you can go beneath the waves. When you’ve gotten your submarine you must set sail into the sun until the water is no longer blue, but green.”
“Green water!” Paul said. “Sounds sickening.”
“It’s not,” retorted Marmy. “It’s the color of the emeralds her majesty wears around her neck. The sea itself glistens like a precious jewel when undisturbed. When, and only when, you have reached the emerald waters, you will dive beneath the waves to the bottom of the sea. There you will pass the Octopus’ garden and reach the land of submarines. A beautiful sight I never saw until my eyes rested upon them underwater water ships.” By this time we were sitting on the floor by the fire, and watching Marmy’s eyes glaze over from his memories.
“I admit, Marmy, you almost sucked me into your fantasy,” I said breaking from my reverie. “You almost had me believin in your tales.”
“It is real,” Marmy roared, “you can see it for yourself.”
“I would really like to, Marmy, but as you can see we don’t have a submarine,” I replied.
“Well I do, and I will loan it to you if it will stop your poking fun of good ol’ Marmy,” growled Marmy in a playful manner.
“You have a submarine?” asked John. “Where do you keep it?”
“Come and I’ll show you,” Marmy said with a smile. Since we were still wet from walking here, it didn’t seem to bother us that we had to go back outside. Marmy ran ahead in the excitement of someone finally believing his tales. We followed Marmy best we could down the street to the docks. When we got down there, Marmy was nowhere to be found. We followed a path that was only visible because of the lanterns that were lit inside the boats. Every so often we had patches of darkness, and in one such patch Paul stubbed his toes. Before long we saw the silhouette of Marmy at the very last dock. “Here we are lads,” he said.
“I don’t see anything,” Paul said.
“Nor do I,” agreed George.
“Well here then,” Marmy said as he lit a match to light a lantern. There it was. The four of us stood in awe before a large submarine.
“Why’s it yellow?” John asked.
To which Marmy replied, “It’s yellow because it’s easier for other submarines to see it. You’ll understand when you reach the land of submarines.”
“I like it,” I said. “The yellow makes it groovy.”
“Well who wants to take a trip?” John asked.
“I don’t know, mate,” I said. “I’ve been here all my life. I was born here and I haven’t left since.”
“Don’t be cowardly Ringo. What’ve you got to stay for? This will be just the adventure you need.” John said in his suave and most convincing voice.
“All right, John,” I gave in. I fall easily to peer pressure.
“How ‘bout you lads?” John inquired about George and Paul.
“What about band practice?” George asked.
“There seems to be room for the instruments; we can practice on the boat.” John answered in his most influential voice.
“Well I guess, I’m in, then.” George said.
“Well that’s well and good and all, but what about food and nourishment?” chimed in Paul.
“How are we going to eat?”
Marmy responded, “this ship has enough food in her to last a crew a lifetime, or my name isn’t Marmaduke Boxen the Third.”
“It’s settled then,” John said, “we leave first thing tomorrow.” By this time it had stopped raining. We made our way to our homes without any incidents and I fell asleep as soon as I got into my bed.
It was ten o’clock when I woke. ‘Blimey’ I thought, ‘I’m late, I hope they didn’t leave without me.’ I put my drum set inside a cart and I pushed it to the docks.
“Here we are then.” It was Paul who had spoken; apparently I was the last to arrive.
“We’ve been waitin for you.” Then he yelled to the others, “Hey blokes, Ringo’s here.” George and Paul came out the submarine to greet me.
“Got everything you need?” George asked me.
“I think so,” I replied.
“Well if you can’t remember it now, you must not need it,” said John.
“I have everything I need then, don’t I?” I retorted. Marmy was there as well, waiting to push us off.
“You lads remember the directions?” he asked us.
“Aye” we all shouted at the same time.
“Then be off with you.” And just like that we set sail.

* * *

The months went by with no sign of the emerald sea that Marmy described; we used that time for band practice and to get to know one another better. One night, while the lads and I were playing music, a storm approached. The ship tossed and turned all over, and the waves crashed harshly into its sides, but just as soon as the storm started, it stopped. We went to the top deck of the ship. Paul ran up first in order to relieve this sick from his stomach. The rest of us soon followed, and what we saw filled us with awe. A sea as green and as shiny as her majesty’s precious jewels laid calm before us. Paul was right in thinking it was sickening; that is, it was sickening watching Paul get sick over the side of the ship; other than that, the sea of green was beautiful. As a side note, Paul’s sick was also green, but not a beautiful emerald green, but more of a rotten lime green. Now where was I? Oh yes, we just arrived to the sea of green, so we prepared the submarine for submersion. John led the way as George helped Paul below deck. I followed the other three enjoying my last breaths of fresh air.
We all watched from the submarine’s round windows as we dived into the sea. The beauty we noticed above the waves was no match to the extravagance we encountered below. Hundreds of fish the color of rainbows swam before us. Some were swimming through the water so quickly that the water stayed still. We glided under the sea until we came upon a large patch of what looked like vegetables. “What is this place?” George asked.
“I think it’s the Octopus’ Garden?” said John.
“Why d’you think that?” I asked.
“For two reasons,” John answered. “Number one – We just passed a sign that said ‘Octopus’ Garden,’ and number two – there is an octopus wearin overalls and a straw hat wavin at us from over there.” We all looked to where John was pointing, and sure enough, there was an octopus wearing farming clothes and waving to us with four of his tentacles.
“Blimey,” Paul said, “will you look at that?”
“Does this mean we’re gettin close to the land of submarines?” I inquired.
“Methinks we’ll be there within a week.” John replied. He was wrong; we had approached the land of submarines within a day. Marmy was right; I had never seen such a beautiful sight as the collection of these underwater automobiles. There were more colors presented before us now than when we first dived and saw all of those rainbow fish. We now understood why Marmy had painted the submarine yellow; this was a happy and animate place, and any color that was not bright and cheerful could not be welcomed. We noticed that many of the ships were attached to underwater docks that connected the submarines to each other. We found an empty dock and suctioned our ship next to the portal. This was the first time we opened the submarine’s door in months, and what we saw when we opened it was a complete surprise. A lot of the mariners from other ships were anticipating our arrival and threw us a surprise welcome party.
“How’d you know we were comin?” George asked.
“Old Max told us,” one of the mariners said.
“Who’s Old Max?” Paul asked.
“He’s the farming octopus you lads passed,” another mariner said.
“He can talk?” I asked.
“Don’t be dim,” John said, “octopuses can’t talk.”
“Then how’d he tell these gentlemen we were on the way,” I retorted.
“He swam here,” A third mariner replied. “Any time Old Max visits, it means a new ship has found its way.”
“So what do you lads do here for fun?” George inquired.
“We sing, dance, and play,” the first mariner replied. “It’s the perfect life, the sea life is.”
“I think I’m home,” I said.
“We all are, Ringo,” John said. “We all are.” The group decided that we would spend our remaining days in the land of submarines where we had plenty to eat, drink, and be merry, and most importantly, we had our friends.