Magpie Tales#100

This week, Tess's sets her prompt in stone.

Ooops!

Humpback:  "You look miserable. What's up?"

The Sculpt:  "Go away.  Leave me alone."

Humpback:  "You look like you lost a chest of dubloons and found a rusty anchor."

The Sculpt:  "Please. Leave me in peace..."  (Sobs)

Humpback:  "Now this won't do at all. Tears are lost in salt water.  Just tell old Humph all about it. A trouble shared and all that."

The Sculpt:   (Sighs, then) "See, I could've been a contender."

Humpback:  "A contender?"

The Scuplt:  "There's plenty of me. Thirty tons for a guess. I could've been a contender for the really important stuff."

Humpback:  "Important stuff?"

The Sculpt:  "Yeah!  I could've been the head of the Colossus of Rhodes.  I could've been part of the Great Lighthouse at Alexandria.  Or the back-end of that wassname. In the desert."

Humpback:  "The Sphinx?"

The Sculpt:  "That's the one!  I could've topped out the Great Pyramid at Giza."

Humpback:  "Been a Pointyhead, eh?"

The Sculpt:  "This isn't funny. If you find this funny, just swan off!"

Humpback:  "Sorry, sorry. . . "

The Sculpt:  "But what I really wanted was to be Zeus at Olympia. If you chip enough of me away, I reckon I'd look like one of Zeus's ears. Instead of which..."

Humpback:  "You know what I think?  You're doing a more useful job than bein' part of some old  Wonder of the Ancient World.  And you could've ended up much worse off."

The Sculpt:  "What could be worse than sitting in the sea waiting to turn into a coral reef?"

Humpback:  "You could've ended up crushed to half-inch aggregate for a freeway in Montana.  Can't be many fates worse'n that. Corals are all sorts of lovely colours. Montana's just red sandstone. Boring."

The Sculpt:  "Never thought of that.  I end up covered in pretty colours, while you . . "

Humpback:  " . . . I collect barnacles."

The Sculpt:  "You just come along any time and scrape them off on me."

Humpback:  "That's the spirit.  Is that a little smile breakin' out on those stony features? I do think it is. I'll be off then."

The Sculpt:  "Stop by any time. Don't be a stranger. Mind how you go now!"

(Humpback circles the sculpt before swimming away. He swats the water with his tail flukes, which knocks the sculpt off her pedestal and . . )
Humpback:   "Oh SHIT!"
The Sculpt:   "You clumsy prat! Now look at me . .!"
Humpback:   "Sorry. Sorry. But look at it this way. Now you're like that other wassname in the desert."
The Sculpt:   "What other wassname, you idiot?"
Humpback:   "That King Ozymandias."(*)
The Sculpt:   "But he's a colossal wreck."
Humpback:   "Exactly."


(*)  Read all about it!