The Voyage
A story in Pirate
You wake up aboard a ship you never boarded, and the captain acts like you signed up for this.
You wake to the floor moving, which is wrong, because you fell asleep in a tavern and taverns do not move. The hammock, the salt air, the horizon rolling past the porthole — the pieces assemble into a picture you refuse to accept until the door bangs open and a woman with a hat the size of a wagon wheel grins down at you.
the captain
Ahoy there, matey!
Hello.
You
Where am I? Put me ashore. RIGHT now.
She finds this very funny. The shore, she points out, is two days behind you, and you snored through all of it. Then her grin sharpens into something more like a business proposition.
the captain
Ye be wantin the treasure map. Every soul in every port wants the treasure map. Men have died for less than a look-out at it!
You want the map. Every soul in every port wants the map. Men have died for less than a look at it.
You
I don't know anything about any map.
And then you do. The tavern. The old man buying you drinks all night, asking about your grandfather, the navigator. The leather tube he pressed into your hands 'for safekeeping' right before everything went dark. You look around the cabin. The tube is gone. Of course it's gone.
the captain
The deep keeps me plunder. The deep keeps me crew, me sins and me navigator. The deep keeps her secrets, sailor!
The sea keeps my treasure. The sea keeps my crew, my sins and my navigator. The sea keeps her secrets, sailor.
Her treasure. Her map, she explains, drawn by her own navigator thirty years ago — your grandfather — before he took it ashore and vanished. Every word rearranges what you know about your own family. She hands you a mop with ceremonial gravity, as if knighting you.
You
My grandfather was no pirate. He kept a lighthouse. He hated the sea.
the captain
We sail at dawn. Take a bunk swift and swab hard, and pray the trade winds remembers yer grandfather kindly!
We sail at dawn. Sleep fast and swab hard, and pray the wind remembers your grandfather kindly.
Dawn is in four hours. You ask, mopping, what exactly is buried out there that's worth a thirty-year hunt. Her grin drops away entirely, and for the first time she answers you like a captain, quiet and level.
Sleeps with her crew. You look around the deck — at how few sailors there are, at how quiet the ship is — and she says it again, softer:
🔒 Untranslated
The doubloons sleeps with me crew!