With the Music Inside
Three ----
The sun was unforgiving the next dawn. Atlas had stayed on the deck and when the sun came up he was awake within minutes. He rubes the sleep from his eyes and looked up at me. He only grinned where he stood and looked across the water. His eyes sparkled as he looked at it. I looked out and tried to find what gave him such pleasure. There was only the water. Nothing suits Atlas better than being a pirate. That was our droogy Atlas.
"Atlas, there's a storm to the west!" I look up to the crows nest to where Rover Rose stood looking with his spy glass to the sky to the east. "Should we avoid it?" Atlas looks from Rose to me. He puts his hand on my head again and I look out of to the sea. Not playing their song only listening. I shake my head after a minute.
"It'll turn," I whisper but Atlas still managed to hear me. He nods and looks back at Rose.
"Keep on course," Then he looks around the deck to all the droogs around and nods. "We'll be fine. Keep on going." They nod and all go back to what they were doing running around the ship. Atlas stretches and looks at the water again. "Want to join me on the navigation deck?" I look at the ocean and shake my hand.
"It's too hard to hear up there. With Bosie yelling all the time." He laughs and nods.
"And hard to sleep." He smiles at me again and bowing slightly walks across the deck to the steps to the navigation deck. I watch him until he was talking to Bosie the noise Navigator. I look back out at the water again and smiles slightly pulling my piccolo to my lips and playing a small refrain before I was surrounded by Gloria and Maniac. Manic was the cook.
"Hello, little Blue!" Gloria nearly yells at me. I cringe away from her and continue to play softer now. Gloria was a loud girl by nature, but she didn't particularly like me either. She would hang all over Atlas whenever she could. Manic just stood on my other side not saying much. Picking strings off his jacket and throwing them into the sea. I look back at Gloria and while still playing glare at her. She smiles and looks at Manic "Stop it you dumb-daft." Manic looks at her and glares too. Gloria rolls her eyes and looks at me.
"So what were you doing out here last night?" I glare lightly at her for a second and then look back at the water. "Rose said you and Atlas were out here all night." She was smiling; I didn't have to look to know that. There was a way her voice said she was smiling. All voices did it, but Gloria's more so.
I play a soft high measure of trills and Gloria looks at me with destine. Her golden complexioned face ruffles up in the strongest frown she could muster. Her eyes narrow and her face tilts down just a little. "What is it?" Now even Manic was looking at her, a look of wonderment on his face. "What does he see in you that is so wonderful?" Manic looks down at me and listens to the song I was working through. He lifts an eyebrow and leans on one hand looking at me and listening. Gloria saw this and practically glares at him before reaching across my back and hitting him. Manic jumps and looks at her. "What are you doing!"
"Listenin'," Manic states in his gruff voice that was complexly simple. "It's really a beautiful song." I smirk while still playing and look at the water, hoping Gloria didn't see it. But as her name suggests, Gloria the Seer sees everything.
"Oh, stop smiling," She growls at me, her Green eyes sparkling with hate. "You haven't won." I turn my head to look at her. And in an abrupt accident her golden curl that was falling from her head finds its way into my eye. "I will get the prize in the end." I just watch her as she grabs Manic and drags him away, half of her hair tumbling down her back in a river of golden leaves. I shrug as she disappears into the galley, her brown colored skirt following her like a chocolate lab at her heels. I shake my head and play a little louder.
"What did you say to her?" I look to my left where Anex was walking up. Anex was ten times whatever beauty Gloria possessed. She just wasn't very girly about it. With her black cotton shirts that the short sleeves were rolled up on her shoulders. And her leather pants that clung to her and made hurting a man so easy when he would do anything for you. Anex was a pure Pirate, he father and mother had been pirates, so was her brother. I stop playing and put my piccolo in my lap and lean back against the rigging. Anex's presence also demanded attention.
"I didn't say anything." Anex smiles and looks at the hatch where Gloria had gone. She laughs after a second.
"You know what she hates the most? That you don't have to talk to get the crew's praises." She laughs again, looking back across the deck. "Damn, Blue, if I could do that… I'd be living in my big house on the east side of the water." I smile at her but don't say anything.
I sit up after a second and return to playing. Anex had a voice like a canary, soft and but at the same time, so stern it would hurt to have her yell at you. She listens for a while before sighing and looking out at the water just like Atlas had. Her honey eyes light up as she looks at it.
You never really had to look at them to know that Atlas and Anex were relation. Atlas' hair had been that same coal black before he started to shave his head. But while Anex's eyes were the softest honey you would think of, Atlas' were sea green. Anex had a baby, too. She was a jewel named Bonny. But a droogy ship like this is, is no place for a child. The baby was left with her father who lived in the sound on the east side. Anex could have her big house any days she was wanted. But she chooses to stay with her little brother and his band on misfits. And like all of the others here, I was just another one of those misfits. She didn't have to look pretty for us, she was just better by blood.
Anex looked at me as my song became mellow as my mind followed this line and smiled at me. I didn't want her to smile though. Anex's beauty didn't belong on this ship, with us misfits. With those like me who didn't bother with shoes making the soles of their feet black with dirt. Whose lips were covered with scars from the countless hours I spent on a trivial task like playing the oceans sonnet, or a mellow songs that fueled us to raid these towns. Whose hair was too stringy and matted in the slightest wind. Whose blue eyes were more dead that Davie Jones himself. She didn't need to smile at me. My song only got mellower and soon I had to stop playing. "Sorry," I squeak out and looking at the ocean, close my eyes. Anex places her hand on my back and rubs small circles.
"You didn't do anything Blue. What'd there to be sad about?" I shake my head, refusing to let my frail voice come out distraught. "Blue? I… What did I do?" I shake my head harder and look at her. There was real concern on her face.
"You don't belong here Anex." She looked a little startled. I was too. Though my voice had come out distraught it had been, soft. Something my voice rarely was. "You belong on you big hill, with your big house, that guy who cares about you and, your little baby. Not with us." She shakes her head.
"Did you forget Blue Song? I was like you once too." I shake my head again. "Oh shut up! I've made a place here, and if I leave who will keep it?" I look at her and she smiles again. I look back at the water. "And who in their right mind would stand up to Atlas when he does something stupid? I know one day that'll be you. But Blue, you can't do it now. I love you kid, and that little brother of mine would do anything for you. But you need to stand up to him once in a while, before I can give you the job of keeping him alive." She laughs. "Blue… look at me," Her voice was hard now. "Blue." I look at her and her face melts at the sight of the tears on my cheeks. "Oh god, kid." She touches my back again, but I move away. She pulls her hand back and nods. "Alright, I get it." And just like that she walks away.
After a minute I pull my piccolo back to my lips and play a song from the old days. I would get away from here one day. There was no way I could stay with these people who live in a shell. Live in the shell that we droogs have made for ourselves. We need to all get away from here. Living sheltered from the people who are different is a path to pain when we all a forced from each other. The piccolo falls from my lips as my hands shakes to hard. Steadying my breath was hopeless, I was a wreck.
But I could feel a little hope on my back. Someone was watching me. I pull the piccolo back to my lips and just hold it there. The sea wouldn't listen. I couldn't hear its song through the screaming in my mind. I close my eyes and opening them again look at the ocean.
This was the murder that had taken so many different and the same as us. Atlas and Anex's parents were killed by the sea. And yet they loved it so much. So why could one person look at it and see only blood and another see so much adventure that they could forget all those killed and sail it? That was the only question the sea wouldn't answer.
What I saw at that moment, I still don't understand. And suddenly I was playing like I had never had the will to play before.