ACT ONE
SCENE ONE
ROLLING BALL ONE
Ah, at last we reach One Piece.
It has taken many years to reach this point, and whilst I'm sure I've lost many friends, and comrades, and ships along the way—whose names I'm afraid I cannot recall at the moment, due to being teary eyed at the solemnity of the occasion, at last, I have it.
It is the One, Remaining Piece of Cheese, from the Rube Goldberg Machine..
Along with the missing bucket to kick!
At last-finally, I can rest easy, knowing the board is complete. The world has been traversed. The sights have been seen. Many mice have been caught along the way. And there is only one thing left to do.
I planted the Flag of Union, proudly proclaiming this land of Raft-Tell, and any treasures that may lie within, for God, and Queen, and Country, and strode off, merrily, back to my leaking boat, passed the baffled natives, who could also rest easy, knowing the flag would protect them, and that they no longer had the burden of owning such a pirate infested swamp.
It was at the point I started to swim across, for the boat had gone adrift, that one of those freely unburdened natives shot me in the back.
LAUGHTER
LAFTEL
KNOW THE PUNS
Hmm. What do you think, computer?
To be perfectly honest, I had a perfectly good explanation of the joke written up in my head, all about bilingual puns, and how the countries with the greatest literacy rate of my own language do not in fact, include the country where it, or I, originated. However, it is vitally important that I don't explain the joke, for reasons quite unfathomable to me; apparently a joke ceases to be funny.
I also had a wonderful diatribe about my own deficiencies prepared, all to do with being on a short course of some pretty hefty antibiotics, which are doing exactly what the name implies, including the bit where I think I'm losing the will to live. Oh, and the pile of things I have to do—literally a pile of things; they've been on the floor since a couple of chapters ago—before moving to the aforementioned house with you, and I.
Thus ends over a dozen years of semi-isolation, utterly wasteful…thousand yard stares, fruitless endeavours, and breathing black mould spores, among other things…through various rental properties across three countries, and continents.
I hope; for my parents' sake, at least.
I even had a meandering plan in my head, to discuss the nature of artificial intelligences, robots, computers, and the difficulty of spotting emergent life from machines when we're all so very, very good at hacking.
To be perfectly blunt, my computer is about five years old at this point. I know, without any experience at hacking into other people's computers that means my files have been accessed about seven different ways from Sunday, and are probably being read across six continents, simply to prevent a trace, from someone who hasn't got a hope in hell of even knowing where to begin.
This is because I've watched way too many cop shows, where the police force actually has a budget. If you're going to butt in to my sad attempts at writing myself into a fictional reality, by all means, offer something more helpful than 'old man' in Japanese script. Or Chinese. I really can't tell the difference, because I never studied those languages, either.
In all honesty, at this point all I'm wondering is whether or not I need to extend acknowledgements, and list you in my credits. Obviously, I already have Google, Microsoft, Apple, the various manufacturers of my (mostly) second hand computer and console equipment, the machines themselves, and, of course, my parents, distant relations, no relations, teachers, and classmates listed.
I always hated that part of any research project. Historically, most people, if they had any sense, for paper, ink, and time was almost always a premium, always used to say, 'Give thanks to God, because it's better than tracking down everybody, and every thing you owe, and discovering they want something in exchange for it'. This is called shorthand.
The fact you've never heard anyone say that before, merely goes to show there are very few people with any sense left in the basics.
Wealth, fame, fortune, power…these are the lures set out by the legendary pirate king Roger Gold, who died with a smile on his lips, and absolutely no 'D' in the middle of his name; the man who began the Great Age of Piracy, and set forth a thousand ships...
Hang on a minute.
It's wine, women, and gold that vie for the top spot in the halls of power, and the woman who set this all in place would indisputably be Helen of Troy.
The most beautiful woman in the world apparently has a moustache-and a name change, to boot.
Here's another thing I'm not familiar with: what the hell is a Pirate King?
Pirates are simple creatures. They belch, they fart, they eat, they drink, they throw all manner of waste over the side, and they tend to cause a ruckus at the docks. They also blow ships up for a living, and steal all the booty. Occasionally, they may even pray to any god that will listen.
These pirates tend to spend all the money on transient things. So much so, there's practically no point in actually paying them. Simply wave a yellow cloth in front of their face, and drop them off at the nearest red light district, where their bills are covered for the night, depending on their performance.
Then there's the other type of pirate. The one that blows up ship for a living on the orders of Her Majesty, and lives in a noice little Abbey surrounded by carved pineapples, and roasts on the hearth, prays to God, organizes things effectively, and depending on the times, probably dies a very literal shitty death of dysentery, after paying their taxes.
There are space pirates, sea pirates, air pirates, time-travelling pirates, the occasional land pirates with hovercrafts or goliath building carriers, and even some mysterious creatures known as underground pirates.
The key factor being, that they have in their possession, some means of transport that can carry multiple people, and can mount weaponry, and retrieval equipment upon that vehicle, expressly for the purposes of blasting holes in things, looting, and partying.
If there isn't enough room to swing a cat, it's not a pirate ship.
I used to make little plastic transports out of connector bricks, and stress test them by flinging marbles at the construction—
The point being, none of the pirates I've ever heard of would carry such a title as 'Pirate King'. Nor would they even accept such leadership, unless they were a king first, and pirate second.
Digging through the archives unearths a possible contender for matriarch, president, or prime minister of the pirates worth mentioning in the South China Sea, with 80,000 sailors under her command, but she is lacking in one particular qualification to be Queen of the Sea.
Kings, and Queens, tend to inherit their titles, keep their titles, and pass on their titles when they do in fact, pass on. Usually nominating a successor, for all the estates, fleets, booty, and massive, massive debt incurred over the years.
It's something to do with people wanting to be paid, and demanding that they pay as little as possible in return. Somebody ends up shouldering the whole thing, and paying off stupidity, which is why Kings and Queens get the right to rule: their job is to think long-term. As in, lifetimes ahead, not six months-the latter of which I recognize is a long time in politics.
What the pirates of the Grand Line dream of, is not, in fact, being a King or Queen. Kings, and Queens are regimented, and they have to deal with the bloody paperwork. What they dream of, is being a pirate god. To have their name written in the heavens, and inscribed upon the earth, to become living legends, known for all time…to keep their plunder, and spend it, too.
How about I give an answer to that dream…
NO.
You're not good enough to be a god. And my star charts wouldn't be the same, so no. Nobody gets to be Pirate King.
If you want to be a Pirate Leader though, by all means, be the first into the fray. I'll be over here, keeping my distance, trying very hard not to get shot.
Or stabbed, or poisoned, or whatever the case may be.
Yes, of course, I'm a bloody coward, hiding here. And when your bacon needs saving, you'll be glad I stayed behind, to pull you back when things go all pear shaped, so the surgeon can hack your limbs off before they get gangrene.
Not that you'll listen, but it's my job to say 'I told you so'.
I suppose you are in fact, listening, giving me that filthy look. People pretending to be professors aside, listening does not in fact mean that anyone is going to follow your instructions, or any that I may relay.
At the very least, you're hearing. Which is why I'm speaking very loudly, and slowly, to people I'm perfectly aware can understand my language just fine, except for the little fact that they won't slow down whenever somebody waves a yellow signal in front of their face.
Brute force always wins; as long as you don't mind bits and pieces.
The key thing to note, however, is that the position of highest, and lowest, first, and last, greatest, and least, is already occupied, and they're not moving.
So, if the pirates of the Grand Line wish to be gods, to have it all, and spend it unwisely, then I'm afraid these people need to look out wherever they're sailing.
Imagination only takes one so far.
If one wishes to go all the way, then one will find the only reward they receive is a flat line.
If there is one thing that God, and Death, and the Adversary all have in common, presuming, of course, that one is careful with their definitions, 'The Message we convey, is, whether Good, or Evil, we all despise Iniquity, and all ensure that payments are due, on Time'.
Ha. That's an age-old philosophical question answered. In theology, it has something to do with whether or not God, and The Lord (we'll get to that) is good or evil, and whether or not he controls both sides of the board.
They do a swap.
Between Lords and Ladies. Balancing out which moves first.
Now, on a much more serious issue:
Which is cooler: pirates or ninjas?
The answer is of course, pirates.
The rationale is very simple. Ninjas are shadows, stealthy, and dart all over the place, because they lack what is called a ride. Ninjas do not have booty. Ninjas do not have swag. Ninjas are embarrassed if they are seen, and ninjas have to dress to impress.
It's not even a proper debate. Ninjas have great potential, nothing more. They may, in fact, be hot, but never cool, unless they become a true Jedi Pirate Warrior, whereupon, there is a lightsaber, and a ship; a beautiful ship…a reliable ship.
It is a ship, which one may call home, away from home, to traverse the sea of stars.
Pirates are ninja masters.
I have absolutely no idea how this debate got started, but one side is very clearly wrong. What's worse is there seems to be a very determined effort to ensure that people remain wrong-footed, to make them easier for stabbing.
No, I'm not talking about the bloody vaccination. Go and get your shield, you stupid—
Look, the problem with morons who like to blow things up, and spend on a whole lot of persistent goods on transient services is that they never stand still long enough to go over the basics with anyone else—whether to teach or learn, somebody always gets left behind, and those who charge forwards, forget.
Of course, if we merely went backwards, the game would be over before it could begin.
So, let's go backwards for a bit. To a time without money, a time without pirates, and their ships, to a time without dreams.
Here we find the chessboard, again, and the line. All the little pieces, in formation, ready to attack the ones that are not one of us, to maintain the sanctity of the kingdom, and to conquer all that lay before eyes and ears.
What shape is this board?
Let us presume that the pieces can move on their own volition, without player intervention. Let us also presume that these pieces can feel their way around the board, and recognize other pieces, on contact.
Oh well. I'm out of time. Next chapter, I have to see about writing fight scenes, and other bloody messes, and some characterization. It'll probably be terrible, even if I copy verbatim, because people are going to scream That's not what happened', when their memory edited out the silly bits. Anime and manga is B-movie stuff. It is what it is. Oh, and I have to scrub the deck.