The following is a series of six drabbles, admitted to the "882 Ways to Appease the Heathen Gods" challenge on livejournal (email or leave me a review if you want the link).
Each is unique, and I wish to share them with you. See if you can find the significance in them—what they relate to, who the main character is, etc. But most of all, enjoy them. For they are enjoyable.
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Brothel
It
is cold, more so than normal. But she doesn't care as she sits by the window,
open to the night air, gazing out to sea.
It
had been so long. She never understood why he disappeared. Why he never came
back for her…like he said he would.
All
that she had left of him was a gold coin.
"A token of our love," as he described it. Now she laughs as one who
has finally been defeated laughs. The coin falls through her fingers, over her
palms. A breeze rustles what's left of her curtains, sending an icy chill down
her spine. She looks up, squints out into the harbor, notices
a dense fog and a black ship. Her breath catches in her throat.
Maybe
he's finally come back for her. Despite her excitement she remains calm,
waiting.
Twenty
minutes later there is a knock on the door.
"You've
come back," she says. "You've come back for me." A single tear falls down her
cheek. He sighs and shakes his head.
"Not fer you, lass." He motions toward her hand,
where the coin lay.
She
doesn't understand.
She never will.
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Wavepool
You
wouldn't believe the treasure you'd find beneath the surface of the ocean,
whether put there deliberately or not.
I
found mine one fine afternoon; a gold coin knocked out of a pirate's hand, come
to join me beneath the waves. I kept it on a chain around my neck for near ten
years before my luck turned bad.
I
sure gave them a hell of a ride, dodging all over that ocean before they
finally caught me.
They
thought I was a damned dolphin, until they pulled me aboard.
"Jesus,
Mary, and Joseph," one of them sputtered, communicating the shock that the
others could not.
Their
captain demanded my treasure. I told him he was clumsy to have dropped it.
He told me I was clumsy to have kept it.
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Not to Be
They
would call him a genius, after he was dead. After his scribblings,
marks, sonnets, and plays were published in English textbooks for elementary
and high school students to supposedly learn from. They would moan and
complain, "please, not HIM again, why can't he just speak ENGLISH!?"
He
smiled to himself. Perhaps he was a genius.
He
dipped his quill and spread the ink along his parchment, stopping every so
often to reload.
Perhaps,
though, it was the coin.
He
had found it on the cobblestone street outside the master shipbuilder's shop.
It seemed to have called to him; he was mesmerized by it.
He
fingered it as he wrote; trying to extract whatever magnificent power it held.
'This
above all,—to thine own self be true;'
Well in that case, he thought, I suppose I am a genius.
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Red
He
stood huddled behind the tree, waiting impatiently for his victim to arrive. He
couldn't believe HE had gotten a hold of one of the coins. He couldn't believe
that HE even really existed.
A thump, a jingle.
He
stifled a cough as soot rose through the room, tickling his nose and burning
his eyes. The fat man stood up, bag in hand, dusting himself off.
The
pirate jumped from behind the tree, pulling out his cutlass in defense, not
believing his eyes.
He
shrieked. "He DOES exist."
The
man opposite of him stared blankly, unbelieving as well. He had heard about the
cursed pirates, but he thought they were just stories.
"They DO exist," he whispered, just before fainting.
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Iceberg
I
had been told the story many times by my father—of my great-great-great
grandfather who had been a British soldier at Port Royale.
He had, unfortunately, stumbled upon a gold coin that was to lead to his
eventual death by a band of undead pirates.
My
father said it was bad luck.
I
hardly believed it.
And
now I float in the same waters he did when they threw him to Davy Jones, only I
am much farther north. In the freezing north Atlantic, as it were.
There
weren't enough lifeboats.
I
did not used to believe in the stories, or the bad luck. I had hoped that if
they were true, the luck died with him.
Apparently not.
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Amen
He who taketh
from this chest shall suffer among the living as the undead…
That's
what that damned thing had said, had warned. He didn't know what it meant at
the time; he was too mesmerized by the prize to care.
And
now, after spending all but one of those pieces, he has to get them all back. By force.
Barbossa
sighed as a young man tried to defend his house, his honor, and his life. He
managed to plunge a sword deep in the captain's side while he wasn't looking.
'If
we can' have it all,' he thought, 'at least we can' flounder on account of not payin' attention…' He retrieved the blade from his side,
returning it to its master.
The
captain had to chase the young man's head down before it woke the baby. He took
it into the study, dropped it on the desk. Went to the
bookshelf, found the coin.
Between the pages of the Holy Bible.
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NOTE: For more on this final drabble, see the story Ambrosia of the Sea, by yours truly, under my stories authored page.
Please review.
