Paradise of the Mind

There was plenty of wind to go around.

The sky was churning with it, whistling and howling with its hollow voice as it swept a wispy cluster of clouds away from their safe positions and across the pale afternoon sky. On the shores beyond, the patches of palm trees rocked and swayed wildly in the sand as their fresh green fronds were whipped about in the breeze. Even the sea had caught its share of the gust, as a light spray of salt water leapt up from the waves to merge with the air that blustered above it. All were telltale signs of the untamed wind that had risen this day.

But it was the thin, elegant outlines of a dozen drifting sea birds that showed the breeze's presence most clearly. They were pelicans, shown by their long, distinguished beaks, and they had broken out of their single-file formation to spiral freely with the directionless air. The birds were far from intelligent, but their instincts told them one thing: the wind created waves, which stirred the water straight down to the sandy floor in a funnel of confusion. And where there was confusion, a school of very dazed, very careless fish could be found.

The flock's leader was the first to spot their prize, and with a signaling its fellows to follow suite, the dark brown bird angled its wings downward and dove, plunging gracefully towards the large, glittering shape that floundered in the surf below. As it neared the end of its drop, the pelican drew its wings tightly against its body, gaining momentum, and then shot down through the churning blue surface with barely a ripple. No sooner had it done this than the bird swiftly opened its mouth, allowing the fleshy lower half of its beak to swell out like a captured sail and engulf its unsuspecting prey like a deftly wielded net. A thought that mirrored victory suddenly flashed in the feathered creature's mind as it felt that large round object tumble into its grasp—it could now appease its hunger for the day.

But the minute the bird resurfaced, this simple delusion was shattered by the taste of bitter liquid and the feeling of something cold and rock-hard sliding down its throat. Its graceful disposition abruptly forgotten, the old pelican began beating its wings frantically against the waves and gagged sickeningly. It wasn't a fish that the sky-dweller had snatched away.

Finally, the bird's panicked efforts paid of and it noisily expelled its unwanted find back into the water, where the foul-tasting hazard resumed its mindless bobbing. Recovered once more, the flustered pelican stared at the strange object in baffled wonder, then made a single angry squawk in hopes of triggering some sort of revealing reaction from it. This plan, however, failed to give results.

After all, empty rum bottles were incapable of hearing.

A second passed, and one of the sea bird's younger comrades suddenly began jabbering at its own unidentified foe—a much larger, much rounder wooden object that any human would have easily recognized as an apple barrel. Shortly after this second mystery object arrived onto the unfriendly scene, a flat, four-legged wooden item chose to make its entrance as well. It was a bench, or at least it had been at one point in its artificial life.

The entire ocean seemed to be dotted with these bizarre crafts, harboring their clumsy silhouettes and tossing them about as the breeze continued to play with its surroundings. Utterly perplexed by this discovery, the twelve pelicans each lifted their graying heads to the horizon, searching for the items' source, and after a brief pause, they found it—and promptly took flight as one at the startling sight.

The Black Pearl's crewmen, however, barely spared the frightened birds a glance; there was plenty of wind to go around.

And besides, their current situation was just a trifle more important than a silly flock of overgrown seagulls at the moment.

"Come on! Set to it yeh mangy bilge rats or I'll throw YOU overboard!"

The first mate's gritty voice sent a ripple of haste through the crew, and the handful of men standing directly beside him threw themselves even more vigorously into their work as if the devil himself had given the order. They were each standing elbow-to-elbow, working together as a fright-fueled assembly line as they feverishly executed one the oldest and greatest strategies for building their vessel's speed: emptying the ship.

The first crewman in the line, a young, clean-shaven lad wearing a battered tri-corner hat, continued their process by snatching up another barrel from the deck and shoving it into the next pirate's waiting hands. An older, grizzled sailor, the second man quickly accepted the load, shouldering his squawking blue and yellow macaw, and immediately passed the wooden burden on to the third crewman without a word. This choice of silence, for the older man's part, was due partially to a lack of anything useful to say at the moment; for the most part, however, it was due to the lack of a tongue. As soon as the barrel was out of his grasp, Isaac Cotton's frazzled parrot erupted with another shriek that branded an agonized cringe onto its owner's weathered face.

The third and fourth men practically took the load as one. Both were barely into their thirties, sporting identical jittery stances and tattered sailor garb that didn't quite match their dazed expressions. If there were any two men on the crew who looked nothing like pirates—despite their authenticity—it was Joseph Murtogg and Peter Mullroy, the bumbling pair of Navy soldiers who'd literally jumped ship from the East India Trading Company five years ago. The uncharismatic duo had stumbled and staggered their way through every high-sea battle and tavern brawl that the Black Pearl's voyage had dragged them through, and although they still looked like the same useless new recruits, the two could hold their own as well as the captain himself. They'd had good teachers, and as soon as they were handed the heavy wooden barrel, they spun around in unison to pass it off to one of those teachers: the fifth and final man.

Ignoring the filthy blonde hair flapping in his face, Ragetti snatched away the burden and gratefully hurled it overboard.

"How many more've we got left?" he asked his companions. Before either could answer, the young crewmember in the tri-corner hat jumped in.

"We're spent on barrels!" the lad shouted with surprising authority. "There's still a few crates down in the brig that haven't been taken yet!"

Ragetti was strangely silent at the other's response, and so it was Mullroy who chose to finish the exchange. "We might as well get rid of 'em too while we're at it!"

The young crewmember barely gave a nod to this suggestion and turned his sharp gaze to Cotton. "Follow me. We're getting them!"

A second later, the two were off, leaving their three fellows standing by the rail. Ragetti anxiously watched them go, then shifted his attention over to his remaining comrades as they gawked at the cause of all the commotion.

"I hope they don't toss our gunpowder too," Murtogg gulped.

Ragetti leaned against the rail with equal amazement. "I hope they don't toss us."

Less than thirty meters behind them, the HMS Prowess continued its pursuit.

Ragetti couldn't remember how it'd all started. It'd seemed like one minute, he'd been in the crew's quarters, idly searching for some sharpening tools, and the next, he was scrambling about on deck with Murtogg and Mullroy in a frenzy while Pintel and the captain were howling orders. The Black Pearl had a Royal Navy vessel in hot pursuit, and for the first time in any of her pirate crewmen's lives, the infamous black-sailed ship seemed to be the dreadfully slower of the two.

"Rags!" Pintel shouted just then, interrupting his nephew's anxious reflection and grabbing the thinner man's attention. "Rags! Run up the lines an' see wot's ahead!"

Ragetti was hesitant. "But Marty's already climbin' up to the crow's nest!" he called back.

"Aye!" Pintel snapped in return. "And if 'e's lucky, 'e'll be at eye level wif me in twenty minutes!" He jabbed a thumb at the nearby ratlines. "Take the 'ole bloody two seconds!"

Ragetti smirked at the dry-witted joke—as pint-sized Marty was barely the height of a doorknob—and obeyed his uncle's order, much to Murtogg and Mullroy's dismay.

Climbing the ratlines was nothing foreign to Ragetti. The endless rope ladders were like an old friend, always inviting him into their web to escape from the world below and remember the fun and freedom that brought every sailor and young lad closer to piracy. Besides, Ragetti was a tall man, and a tall man felt most at home in the purely vertical world that only the mast and ratlines could provide.

In a matter of seconds, the lanky figure reached the halfway point of his ascent, and a lifelong habit made him stop to take in the generous breeze. Ragetti felt the wind a lot more these days; his changing taste in style over the past five years had prompted him to grow his hair out to an almost unrecognizable length. Today, the rail-thin pirate sported an even thicker, scruffier chin of beard stubble and a mane of blonde hair that was constantly whipping him in the face, despite his attempts to keep it in place with a faded red bandanna. The wind always found a way of catching his grime-filled locks, and in a way, its interference was welcomed. Being able to feel the soft breeze reminded Ragetti that he was no longer cursed—a sign that things were finally improving. And the young rascal was particularly enjoying the hopefulness that these winds were offering him today.

His uncle, however, didn't share this same optimism.

"Well?!" Pintel shouted from far below. "Wotta yeh sees?!"

Above him, Ragetti snapped out of his blissful trance. He was up here for a reason. Climbing a few steps higher, he leaned forward and squinted ahead at the approaching horizon.

"Rags!"

"Nuffin!" Ragetti reported loudly down to Pintel, then resumed his task. His flailing hair made it difficult enough to see, and the harsh bobbing and swaying of the escape-driven Pearl made it nearly impossible to focus on anything. As far as Ragetti could tell, the water was perfectly calm and flat in all directions, but as the minutes of searching dragged on, his single sharp eye seemed to catch sight of something far ahead of the ship's bow. Unsure, he squinted even harder and lifted himself one more meter.

From the main deck, Pintel noticed this tentative change in Ragetti's behavior. "Rags?" he called up again, only a little less impatient. "Wotta yeh sees now?"

The younger pirate hesitated for a final moment as he tried to confirm his thoughts. Several meters ahead, just beneath the surface of the water, he could barely make out the shape of a motionless gray hulk. It was becoming clearer as the ship grew closer, and with every passing second, he was becoming more and more sure of what it was. Finally, his instincts strong and confident enough, Ragetti shouted back down with an answer.

"There's a reef!" He pointed sharply forward. "There's a 'uge reef up ahead!"

Believing the claim, Pintel immediately nodded to show his understanding and hurried off without so much as a skeptical question—a level of trust that he reserved solely for Rags. Even so, this personal reason for promptness was not the only one that carried Robert Pintel so hastily away. There was a possibility of danger ahead of the Black Pearl and her entire crew, and it was his responsibility to inform the proper authority.

"Captain!" the balding first mate hollered up as he neared the stairs to the quarterdeck. He practically climbed the handful of steps on all fours from the relentless pain in his legs. "Captain!"

To his left on the quarterdeck stood the strong, sturdy figure of the captain, gazing forward into the wind as his leathery hands grasped the ship's wheel. He was not towering in height, but his firm, squared shoulders and his wide-brimmed hat with its dark plumes made him a daunting figure to all manner of seafarers. And rightly so; the Pearl's commander was a literal vault of experience, filled with wisdom and lore from all corners of the earth, and even the waters that lay beyond them. He turned ever so slightly at the sound of Pintel's hasty calls, and when his gasping first mate finally arrived at his side, the captain never dropped the focused expression from his own weathered old face.

Pintel clutched his side to catch his breath. "We's comin' up on a reef!"

Standing at the wheel, sharp and attentive, stood Captain Joshamee Gibbs.

"A reef?" he echoed urgently.

--

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soon to be updated!