A Short Memoir of Captain Nemo

Marine biologist, haddock farmer, lobsterman, whaler, seal clubber, fisher of ocean dwelling creatures, roe harvester, oyster diver, clam digger and crabbing bailiff: Captain Nemo had been all these things before he kissed the Admiral’s ring back in ‘87.
Indeed, he would often spend the long, lonely days at sea by squatting on the poop deck and tossing medium sized squids at my head.
“You know what?” he’d say, indicating the slimy pink mess sliding down my face, “Millions of years ago, before we crawled out of the water and evolved into humankind, that’s what we used to look like. So I guess you should be nice to the cephalopod mollusk life-forms you meet on the way up because you’ll meet them again on the way down.”
Then Nemo would begin to weep, and inbetween sobs he would snatch another miserable squid from the hold and throw the flailing thing back into the blue-green depths it called home. After this lachrymose performance Nemo would be violently sick over the side of the boat and shutter himself away in his cabin, vowing never to emerge until the rest of the crew had spoken kindly to every single squid aboard and assured these inky beings that we humanoid sailors maintained only the deepest respect and greatest regard for them as cephalopod mollusk life-forms.
Later Nemo was transferred to submarines and I lost track of his career. No doubt he was promoted to higher rank, possibly Rear Admiral Nemo or Commander of the Silver Fleet Nemo. He definitely seemed the sort capable of pulling a few salty strings by impressing the Admiralty with his prodigious beard and twitchy eyebrows. Although his irrepressibly maverick nature would obviously eventually lead to his predictable and irrevocable downfall.
Quite frankly, I always felt that his bizarre attachment to squids would backfire on him before too long, especially if he should encounter one of the "giant" variety during one of these perilous undersea adventures his particular genre of submariner always insist upon undertaking at enormous risk, not only to themselves, but also to their crew, those guiltless persons whose very lives and futures any decent captain worth his golden epaulettes would consider with a much greater degree of concern than that shown by the Nemos of this world.