A Resolution
The Crest is coming up on the light-bathed land but I can't bring myself to care anymore. My arm feels like it's stuck full of the water-darts that had shattered from the eye of the squall, and they burn and sting and drive themselves deeper and deeper into my flesh. The pain is so agonizing but now I cannot even feel it anymore; my deadened arm hangs lifeless and heavy at my side and I clutch at the slippery, frigid railing, my father ripping and tearing at the back of my shirt like a thirsty gale. His sword slashes like sunlit ice and he yells and bellows and drags me along backwards, the fabric of my shirt ripping free in his hands and the scent of blood assaulting my nose. The freeze of the ocean's breath bites deep into my exposed body and the captain is howling again, nigh as loud as the gulls that scream chillingly and circle gloomily overhead: he's yelling some nonsense about having to cut off my arm if we cannot attend to the gaping gunshot wound. I shudder and gasp and he seizes me in a grip like a vise, carting me off like a sack of stolen loot, tears pouring and stinging and dripping sickeningly down my aching, bloodied face.
I am rushed into the cool darkness down below and I struggle and thrash against the captain but I can barely even move; somewhere, in the back of my muddled mind, I know that however long I stand to fight, never will I see Alexander again. My stomach heaves as I'm shoved roughly down into a mess of tangled blankets, my father slashing at me and my body recoiling as I am hit ruthlessly by the searing, rusty odor of a fresh wave of newly spilt blood. My breath yanks at my lungs and the pressure winds itself round my wounded arm along with the folds of a long piece of soiled cloth, the captain binding and securing it firmly against the iciness my bare chest, the muffled blood-flow still burning fiery and ripe beneath the wraps of the fabric bandage. Dad's rough fingers swipe the blurred tears from my face and then they slap and tingle blindingly across my scraped cheeks, his face screwed up in fury and his voice lashing into me like a stream of thrashing storm-water.
"You fool, you stupid little fool; pirates do not snivel and blubber like some common whores!"
"Why did you kill him; why…how could you…?"
He widens his eyes as if challenging me and so I venomously spit out that last word, the blood pooling and burning on my tongue.
"….Dad!" I scream, my arm aching and my body shaking uncontrollably.
"He…that little scheming snot had been plotting against me and my good crew for all the weeks that he and his pestilent father landed their rotting carcasses aboard my ship. He and his…father; they hardly deserved to live. Traitors and mutineers hardly deserve to live; maybe one day ye'll be able to wrap that round that thick head of yours, boy."
I think of the compass dangling from my belt and my vision clots full of tears, tears that the captain smacks mercilessly from my swollen eyes with a stinging blow from his blood-stained hand.
"How many times must I tell ye, fool!; a pirate does not bawl!"
I lay there shaking feebly, my throat choked off and thoughts of the impossible spiraling to and fro in the tide of my head. It hits me like a breaking wave, like a ripping gunshot or like the blow of a battle-hardened fist: Alexander is gone, dead, lost to the great beyond. Never again will I see his eyes glitter like a pair of diamonds in the sun. Never again will I hear the joy in his laughter. Never again will I stand next to him against the chill of the marine breeze, shivering and chuckling and chatting about all the things that I want to discuss. Never again will I soar with him, as light as a cloud, my fingers wrapped round the swinging lines and my feet flying thrillingly out into midair. Again I think of the black compass and its spinning needle and how I can pull it free and gaze upon it while Alexander will never see it again. Never. The pit of sorrow yawns deep within me and the ruddy face of my father melts away into a numbing sea of empty darkness.
The distant murmur of the waves dances upon my deafened ears and my petrified eyes remained locked emptily upon the white compass-face, the little black case clutched desperately in the shuddering gasp of my one good hand as my bandaged and injured arm throbs with a horrible, pounding agony. The little compass-arrow quivers and points out in that one, light-gilded direction; it's trembling and shaking the most violently that I have ever seen it. I stare out numbingly into the wall of the cabin and suddenly I fear the thought of leaving the refuge of the Crest's holds. I fear walking out into the sun and facing that bright and blinding glow of the day. I think of the sun shimmering on the water and in Alex's eyes and I don't think that I could ever return to those days, those dizzyingly-glazed days that seem so distant and frighteningly long-ago. They're lost and fraught with the unspeakable and I quiver and clutch the compass in my desperate grasp.
My eyes glaze over and suddenly I yearn to rise and tear after this heading of mine, this far-away beacon of hope that glimmers so tantalizingly on the edges of my misted horizon. I dream of spilling daylight and of the wind as it plays so beautifully against my sun-kissed skin, the gusts whooshing and billowing in the whipping folds of the sails that dance briskly over my head. Ignoring the excruciating throbbing of my wounded arm, I slide weakly from my cot and find myself floating out distantly over the sun-washed, bustling deck, peering guardedly at the compass face that I've tucked carefully underneath the folds of blanket which I clutch so frantically about myself. The wind bites and snaps, the spilling sunlight glitters out over the singing surf, the crew chatters restlessly, and the captain bellows out from his helm-post, his dark hair flying in the wind and his hands clutched victoriously on the wheel.
"Drop the mooring line; ye heard me, the mooring line, you wild bunch of sea-beasts! Here we make port; got to clean up after that hell of a time in the hands of the sea! Steady she goes, hear hear! Carefully now; we don't want to scratch up that pretty little boat that's already docked-that could cost old Captain Sparrow a pretty penny, you know."
He gestures out over the water and my eyes follow his stabbing fingers, his fingers which point in the exact same direction as the trembling needle of my little black compass. The sun winks and the ocean smiles and the sky gleams a brilliant shade of blue, a vivid blue that is stabbed by the proud rise of a whipping mass of flowing black sails. Sails that are attached to the most wonderful thing that I have seen.
