Heart of Darkness, a la Shmoop.
Captain a riverboat up the Congo, they said.
Collect the ivory, they said. It'll be easy, they said.
Yeah, right. My name is Charles Marlow, and this is what happens when you work for a bunch
of Belgians.
I should have known something was amiss from the beginning. When I arrived at the Company's
station in Africa, it was a mess...
...complete with random explosions and overworked native men in chains.
It was also at the station that I first heard about the Amazing Mr. Kurtz.
Was my riverboat waiting for me at Station Number One? Of course not. I had to truck
two hundred miles through the jungle to the Company's Central Station...
...and what did I find when I got there? My battleship had been sunk. Apparently, the
guys from the Central Station killed it when they tried, and failed, to go and rescue the
Amazing and Very Sick Mr. Kurtz. Yeesh. So, I set about trying to fix my ship. The
hours and hours... and hours... spent on repairs nearly drove me to bust into my stash of emergency chocolate.
As for the Amazing and Very Sick Mr. Kurtz, turns out nobody liked the dude, because he
got the gig at the Inner Station via his European connections.
Finally, I got the riverboat fixed. It took two months to get up the Congo to the Inner
Station. There was fog, and the natives shot arrows at us...
...and my helmsman got killed.
A Russian in motley signaled my ship from the Inner Station.
While some of the guys went to collect Kurtz, Ivan came aboard to tell me how totally rad
the Inner Station's lord and master was, although, to be honest, Kurtz sounded less rad and more
completely batpoop freakin' insane. I got out my trusty telescope to observe as
the men from my ship came hauling the Amazing, Very Sick, and Probably Crazy Mr. Kurtz from
the station. I saw heads on poles.
I saw an army of natives.
All in all, as Kurtz got situated aboard my ship, I was wishing I'd never left Europe.
That night, I discovered that Kurtz had left my ship and gone back to shore. I had to go
look for the guy, and talk him into coming back aboard.
We set sail the next day under less than ideal conditions.
Kurtz handed me a packet of papers and a photograph, and proceeded to snuff it.
In the end, I got sick, too, and nearly died, but I
eventually made it back to Europe with Kurtz' stuff.
I gave the report Kurtz had written, entitled the "Suppression of Savage Customs", to
an official, although I might have done a little editing first.
I also went to visit Kurtz' fiancee. Dude had been dead a year, and this chick was still
wearing black. Guess she didn't know about Kurtz's hot girlfriend in the Congo.
She asked me what Kurtz' last words were. I lied and told her he called her name because,
really, how do you explain crazy?
I swear, I'll never work for the Belgians again.