Under a sky, starry as an inverted cheetah, He slowly started to crawl out from under the muddy hole that was his home. He hated leaving it almost as much as He hated living there. The only reason He lived at all was probably because his instincts simply wouldn't let him die. He was hungry now, and He had to feed. He just had to, even though just lying still and waiting for death seemed like a tempting alternative.

And so it had always been. Something inside him just wouldn't let him die. Whether it was hope for something better coming up around future's corner, or if it simply was the disgust he felt at the thought of giving up, it made little different. He didn't want to know. He didn't really want anything. He just did what he had to do, just like he had done the previous last three years, living in the filthy hole. He poked out his head under the bare sky.

"I'd rather be sailing"

The voice came from just outside. Probably above. His head jerked around with a sense of foreboding.

"Who said that?", he croaked, his throat dry as parchment from a forthnight without a single drink. Speaking. It was a strange and somewhat familiar sensation. How long had he been silent? Two years? Maybe two and a half? He had given up the usage of his vocal chords about the same time that the rats stopped coming to visit him. He was almost surprised to hear himself utter a real sentence. He was surprised to hear that his vocabulary somehow, after all this time of silence, still clung to his backbone like an old rug to a moldy floor board.

"I said I'd rather be sailing.a", the voice repeated, "Wouldn't you?"

The voice was that of an old woman, thick and strong and with a small lisp. He stopped short, waited, and listened. He could hear the waves beating relentlessly on the cliffs outside. There was the sea; the big blue, an unforgiving pounding of nature's hammer on all that man would create. That was where he had spent most of his life, up until this point. He fumbled for words.

"Why yes.." He started croaking, contemplating something he had left behind a long time ago. "I suppose I'd rather be sailing..."

The voice outside didn't say anything further, but he could feel it considering the reply. He heard a sound of someone tenderly kissing something soft, then an exhalation and the scent of marijuana brushing by his dried and shrivelled up nose. The voice outside clearly belonged to someone who enjoyed a good smoke. From a pipe, he decided, by the sound of puffing and sucking. He felt an urge to continue the conversation.

"I uh.. I used to be quite the sailor, you know" he tried.

"Did you, now?" the voice replied, sounding almost fatherly.

"Why yes. Yes." He licked his lips, but no moist came to easen his flow of words. He started to become agitated, his past hitting him in the forehead like a small bird smashing into a closed window. "Yes, I... I was... I was a captain. And would still be, if I hadn't..."

He fell silent. The voice waited for a while.

"If you hadn't...?"

If I hadn't been turned into a Vampire Gerbil!

But no, he could not say it. Instead he leaped out of the hole, turning towards the voice, and found himself staring into the face of God. He was dumbstruck.

"You, my friend", said God, "are indeed the incarnation of premature ejaculation"

There fell an eerie silence over them both. The Vampire Gerbil once again fumbled for words.

"I.. Uhh.."

Had he just been insulted by God?

"I wanted something for you", continued God, "I wanted you to be the perfect Prophet of the Sea. I wanted it so badly that when I got the chance of blessing you, on that horrible day three years ago, I stumbled in my fervor. I screwed up and came too fast, so to speak"

The Ex-Captain Vampire Gerbil remained dumbstruck. God came too fast?

"Yes, my furry fangy friend", God said as a reply to his thoughts, quickly continuing with "Even Gods cum too fast from time to time. I just thought I'd apologise and... well.. offer you something in return".

Finally the Ex-Captain Vampire Gerbil's voice and brain came up with him.

"Oh, well, I guess it's all right.", he squeezed out.

"Really?"

"Well, not.. Not really, really, but standing here in the face of God and all.. Well.. I guess it's something of a comfort, knowing that even you can misbless and you know.. Screw up from time to time."

"Yeah, well it wasn't easy to admit," God cleared his throat, obviously not because he needed to, but as a conversational break, before continuing "The reason I came here today, is that I figured out what I did wrong that day. Believe me, I've been working hard on this one. And I've figured out how to turn you into that Prophet of the sea, that I intended for you to become so long ago."

The Ex-Captain Vampire Gerbil's pulse started to raise.

"You mean.. You mean I can become normal.. I can become human.. Again?"

"Why no, not really. You'd still be an Ex-Captain Vampire Gerbil, but not only that. You would become the Ex-Captain Vampire Gerbil Prophet of the sea!"

"Oh. So you mean I still can't sail.. Like I did as a human..?", he replied with desperation, feeling his heart sinking like a stone.

"Nope.", said God, seeming a little disappointed at the lack of exaltation from the small rodent. He tried to start over "But you will become an Ex-Captain Vampire Gerbil Prophet of the Sea!"

"Oh. All right. Well, then.. Thanks, but no thanks", said the Ex-Captain Vampire Gerbil, turning his back on God and starting to head back towards his filthy hole. "If this was my second chance, I guess it just wasn't good enough."

He sighed heavily.

"I think I'll just go and die now."

Staring after the small critter, God slumped his shoulder and turned away.

"Oh, well, I thought it was a neat idea, anyway."