Theme: Pirates!
Initial thoughts: This one was surprisingly more challenging that I thought it would be, mostly because striving to find something new is difficult when talking about pirates. It's been done. Even the approach I decided to go with has been meddled with on some levels. Even though it's not the first page of recent tales, it IS one of the central ideas, and here I'm playing with it up front, rather than let it be the mystery. Where might this tale go? Why might it go there? These are the kinds of things that need to be looked at, even when writing a first page.
As Thad
awoke that morning, there was a stillness in the air. It was unusually heavy, and it felt – slower.
The ship barely moved since they lost the wind, but there was something
more to it, like a pall that was lowered over the ship. He’d felt this only once before, the day his
father died. Thad was only a small boy
at the time, but he knew. He’d run to
his mother’s skirts, then, sobbing uncontrollably as he told her of the attack
on the vessel. She thought he was just
dreaming, but contacted the Harbor Master anyway. It was late into the evening when the news
came back. Pirates raided the vessel,
and took everyone on board.
Today
felt like that day. Thad was older now,
of course, and no longer a boy of five.
At sixteen, he was as tall as his father, with wide shoulders that were
used to hard work. He was working from
the time he was seven, doing odd jobs in and around the port of Caidenton until
he was old enough to be hired on as a cabin boy on one of the merchant vessels. Now, six years later, it was rumored that he
would be the next First Mate of the Heaven’s
Maiden.
His
boots sounded on the main deck as he made his way from the crew’s cabin
underneath and came out into the morning light.
It was bright, as he expected, but the air was thick with fog. Dangerous at best, but it explained the awful
stillness and quiet. A heavy fog bank
would isolate you from the rest of the world.
There was no navigating through it.
“How
did you not see the fog, Mister Leopold?” he asked the navigator.
“I
could not be helped, lad,” said Leopold.
“We’re in the trench, you see.
Shallows on either side of us. We
had to stay on this course, or run aground.”
“At
least we seem to be moving.”
“Slowly, but yes. At least we’re
safe here. Nobody can navigate the
shallows, let alone through the mists.”
“It
gives me a bad feeling,” said Thad.
“I
wouldn’t get worried about it, lad. I’m
more worried about our cargo if we can’t deliver on time.”
“The
Captain is getting worried, too. I
overheard him talking to Mister Galvey last night.”
“I
expect so,” replied Leopold. “We’re all
a little anxious.”
“No,
this is something different,” said Thad.
“I think there’s something wrong, but I can’t figure out what it is.”
“Just
the sea getting to you, no doubt.”
“No
doubt,” said Thad. “If you’ll excuse me,
Mister Leopold, I feel an urgent need to take a walk.”
Leopold
laughed. “Of course, Young Mister
Thaddeus. The starboard side is a right
nice place for that this morning.”
Thad
smiled. Some of the crew were already
practicing giving him the title of “Mister.”
He left the stern of the ship and made his way forward for his morning
constitutional, and almost tripped over a rope.
It was straight and taught, like there was something pulling on it,
running across his path and over the side. He followed it, looking back towards where
he’d left Leopold. The man was not at
his post. He looked over the side. The other end of the rope was attached to a
dinghy, floating silently beside the ship.
It was empty.
He
heard the sound of a boot right behind him, and his hand went instinctively to
his side. “Duck as you turn and draw the knife,” he thought to himself.
“I
wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said a rough voice behind him. “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you
have, boy.”
“Take
what you want and leave.”
“I
don’t think you mean that.”
Thad
turned as he spoke. “Of course I mean –“
“You’ve
grown, lad. And you’ve become quite the
man, from what I hear.”
“Father?”
Theme: Multiple Personalities
Initial thoughts: This could be a lot of fun. As a writer, I hear voices in my head all the time. An old friend was said something to the effect of, "I don't call them characters, I call them people - because they feel alive to me." When you create a character - or a person - they do start to feel alive. If you're lucky, you can visualize them in the world, see how they'd react, and it makes sense. If you're not so lucky....maybe they just begin to take over.
It was
time to face the truth. Theo Horton was
sick. For months, he suspected there was
something wrong, but he couldn’t place it.
Not until now. Now, he had the
proof. That was the hard part. Who would believe him if he just walked into
his doctor’s office? No one. You can’t just make up something like
this. You needed to have some proof, and
the doctors needed to see it as well.
That was the only way to get the help he knew he needed. It would mean a lengthy hospital stay, he was
sure, but he knew it would be worthwhile, in the long run.
He
tried little things at first, hiding his keys, taking pictures of his car’s
gauges with his phone. He would find
them deleted, and replaced with other photos.
He had no memory of it. Then, he
started getting mail for someone named Erik Thompson. The address was correct, but he’d never heard
of this person. He assumed someone
simply scammed his address. He thought
nothing of it. It happened to
everyone. Then, he noticed things in his
apartment getting moved about. That was
when he really got suspicious. Either
there was someone else getting into his apartment, or something was very
seriously wrong. Theo was afraid of
both.
Today,
though, there was a note. Theo thought
it was hastily scrawled, at first. The
handwriting was atrocious. It was angled
oddly, and it made no sense at first, until he looked at the paper in the
mirror. He wasn’t sure what made him do
that, but that was the key. Suddenly,
the words made sense in the mirror, and the message was clear: Erik Thompson and Theo Horton were the same
man. He looked in the mirror, and the
face that looked back at him wasn’t grinning evilly, and didn’t look twisted at
all. He looked, in a word, forgettable.
“Why
are you here?” he asked the mirror.
“Because you failed to get rid of me, last time.”
“Last
time?”
“You
think this is only the first time this has happened? My, you have blocked out a lot.”
“I
don’t understand. Who are you?”
“Oh,
that’s a rich one! I’m you, of course!”
said the mirror. “Check it out! We have the same fingerprints, the same walk,
we wear the same clothes, even. Though I
must say that I have better taste than you.”
“But
this is impossible!”
“And
yet, here you are, talking to your reflection, and getting a response. This seems entirely possible to me.”
“What
am I supposed to do now?”
“Well,
you can get us both incarcerated in a hospital, or you can do nothing. I suggest doing nothing. There’s so much more freedom there.”
“How
long have you been there?”
“Oh
I’ve always been here. And frankly, I’m
tired of hiding out. We’re going to make
some changes to the way things work around here. We have to share this body, and that’s
fine. But I want 4 days a week with
it. You can have the other three. Just to show you I’m a good sport, I’ll take
Saturday through Tuesday, and you can have the rest of the week.”
“That’s
not going to work.”
“I
don’t think you understand,” said Erik.
“It wasn’t a question. You give
it to me, or I will make sure we both get put in prison. Only, I’ll keep you there forever.”
“You
can’t do that before I can get us in a hospital. I can get rid of you.”
Erik
laughed. “You can try. You’ll fail, but you can try.”
Thanks for reading,
Me
No comments:
Post a Comment