Romance Dusk

Garden of Eden

Chapter 1

A hopeless sound is no sound at all. A good man leads a quiet life. Good and quiet, devoid of hope, head held high with rope.

The years have passed me by, each one quicker than the one before. Every year a new set of problems, a hole in the roof I need to save to fix, a shoulder injury I need to take time off work for, my mother getting sick, her needing to be cared for but I can't afford to have someone else to it, my mother dying, the funeral arrangements, the same for my father, my wife leaving, losing my job, getting in trouble with the local navy branch and so on and so on. Each day a new task.

I got let go from my job of 18 years, 6 months back due to the owner's greed, taking out one too many loans and wrecking the business. It was a small but respected shipbuilding company named 'Ship Shape', operating out of Louge town docks. 'More like Shipwrecked' the local rag lampooned the company when it went belly up. Predictably when it came time to pay the loans he went bankrupt and put everything in his wife's name. When it came time to pay his employee's salary he sent round local thugs under the local mafioso Bartolomeo to scare us. 4 months pay I was owed. I can't help but notice he still lives in the rich part of town, while I live off the docks in my shithole one-bed flat. My landlord Gus, one slimy piece of shit keeps upping the rent 'I can always find someone else' he asserts whenever I complain.

My mother had saved her whole life hoping to leave me with more than she had, but all that money went on her care and medicine after a long battle with Alzheimer's for 6 awful years, the last of it bought her a cheap pine box and a hole in the ground.

Now I am the old one, 52 years old, I never even had a family. I have been in love a few times, still am, once to a horrid woman who made a fool of me and took from me what little my father left me. And another who loved me back but did not want a family and in time gave up on me, seeing no future for herself. She now lives with a new man and their two children uptown. I see her now and then, although I always pretend I didn't.

I drink most days, the only people who know me now are those at my job or my local bar. I was a shipwright most of my life, after I lost my job no other firm would hire me as I am old and work slow with my poor shoulder.

I used to dream every day and night of running away, but there was always something that needed doing, my responsibilities had always been a prison, that and my fear.

Now I look around my flat, damp and mouldy, poorly furnished and cold in the spring rains, I wonder what was it all for. I rub my shoulder it always aches in the cold, I worked so hard and everyone took from me, and in the end, they left me with nothing. Nobody felt responsible for me but my mother and she is dead now, and everything she had they took from her too.

In my youth, I wanted to adventure. It is why I worked the docks, I loved the stories. Eventually, I built myself up to be a shipwright and a damned good one if I say so. My work was my pride, yet I never got promoted to a foreman position or got paid more. Why would they, I worked too damn hard and I never complained, my father taught me that.

"A man shoulders his burden silently" his deep and gravelly voice would slur when I wined as a boy. He was a navy man, fought bravely he said, even in the grand line. Until Ohara.

He was a shell of a man in reality. He drank every day, much more than I do. His lungs caused him hell, hacking and coughing all day, he could hardly manage the 15-minute walk to his pub without taking a break. Damage from the job he said, he was under the then vice admiral Akainu at the time. My father once told me everywhere that man went smoke and fire would follow, and thus the occupational hazard of breathing in smoke. He was one voyage away from finishing his mandatory service and could have retired with many perks and a monthly stipend. Alas Ohara was too much for him, whatever happened there, and he left. Dishonourable discharge the Navy called it. The doctors called it a nervous breakdown. He got some hush money, not much mind, about 3 months' pay. All of which he pissed up against the wall in 1 month.

He hung himself in the end, I always thought it was a brave thing he did, ending it on his terms, finally calling it quits on a raw deal.

These days I work loading and unloading goods from the merchant vessels for pence, I should be running a shipyard, managing labour and timber, drawing up schematics, and haggling with wealthy merchants. Instead, I was hung out to dry. These days I work 6 days a week 8 hours a day, my body has forgotten what it feels like not to be sore. A ship pulls in and my manager a man 20 years my junior barks orders 'Unload the fruit' 'Load the gunpowder' he is a young man. He stands and watches holding his clipboard ticking and scratching with pompous importance while I, an unfit old man run myself ragged from six till two. Why his job isn't mine seems cruel, but he is the son of a Virgil Hapner, who owns 17 merchant ships in the east blue dealing primarily in fruit, also grains, spices, weapons for the navy, and other sundries. My ex went to school with him and they remained good friends. This connection was how I managed to get the job, nobody else would hire a borderline cripple, but he took pity on me. Ha, a good joke, pity would have been giving me the job he gave his son, no I think he took some perverse pleasure in it.

Why had I allowed it to get this bad. five more years and I would probably be able to work no more, ten if I was lucky and could you really call it luck. With no children to care for me, I would die in a few more. What a pathetic and pointless life, my name is Algae Morvah not that any would remember it. There was always something more important, more pressing to do with my days than following my dreams. Chores that left me with no energy, bound by my honour and duty to this place, and the shell of a life I had built around myself.

Over the years the fear that consumed me when I thought of following a life at sea slowly chipped away as I gave up. Now I am full of regret and a much more profound fear. 'Did I leave it too late?'

I cannot take it any longer. I have wasted so much of my life, living for other people. I lived for my mother and father, I lived for my boss and my landlord, I lived for my lover and our future, and never did I live for myself. I am allowed to do what I want now, and if it doesn't work. I will kill myself.

A fantasy of escape, which had lived in my mind for my whole life. A small flame I sheltered, and when life was good I would feed it, and when life was bad, it would sustain me. That ember had started to evolve into a plan over the past week.

Monday was hell. I had started work at the crack of dawn feeling worse for wear, I was more hungover than usual which simultaneously wasn't saying much and really was. My head was a fucking blacksmith's, my guts were rolling like the sea in winter and every mistake I had ever made in my miserable life was running around my head like a train. This is why I believe hangovers get worse with age, you simply have more to regret come the morning. My co-worker hadn't turned up, probably hung out to dry like me but with the good sense to take the morning off work. So it was just me and Virgil Junior. Not that he would lend a hand, he sat on a stool, down the docks drinking a coffee making notes on his clipboard, 'supervising' while I unloaded the goods. It was a fresh food supply to be loaded for market this morning and it was running late so I had to work double time, as I loaded the wagons they would set off, fresh fruit mostly, and vegetables from a nearby island specialising in agricultural goods.

I had been going for an hour as per usual, unloading the boxes based on Virgil's schedule of who would get what when, depending on the buyer's wealth or social standing. Next was the fruit, on its way to an upper-class market in the centre. After a few boxes, I stopped to take a breather, or rather I collapsed into a fetal position, dry heaving while the world span around me, it was at this moment I made my mind up. I was never drinking again! When the devilish idea occurred to me, to help myself to some fruit, the hydration, and vitamins would do wonders for my hangover, and it never failed to give me a small sense of satisfaction that this fruit was brought and paid for by my asshole boss and all the pricks in there marble and sandstone townhouses and mansions in the centre and upper crust.

When I saw it, amongst a large wooden box of bananas, one was a peculiar light green, with minute black spirals running its length. A cold shiver ran down my spine like an electric shock. This was a devil fruit, Captain Smoker had eaten one of these, and it had made him the bane of all pirates in the East Blue attempting to make passage to the grand line. Straw Hat Luffy had eaten one, the man with the dream of becoming king of the pirates. Even that clown Buggy. This fruit would contain within it a power that could change my life.

My body went frigid and cold as a sweat formed down my neck. Do I eat it now, just stuff it in my mouth, and sort this out later? No what if something happens, what if it manifests itself immediately in an obvious way, I could grow a tail or turn into straw for all I know. I saw those freaks poring in from the grand line for Rogers' execution who knows maybe they looked that way because of the fruit they ate, no I can't risk somebody knowing what I had done. The punishment for that would be profound, these fruits are almost non-existent in this sea and the Beli price is more than I have seen in my life.

I heard shouting above and stomping on deck "OI, Algae, what the fucks taking so long, we are already running late you stupid drunk."

I could feel my teeth rattle as I grit them so hard it hurt. Shit, shit, shit. I grabbed the fruit and stuffed it down my pants just as Jr stomped down the steps in his workman's boots, more than I could afford yet they had never done a day's work. Still, he loved to stomp about in them all flat-footed and cocksure. Speaking of cocks it now looked like I was sporting a mighty bulge. He looked at me strangely as I hunched over and made it look like I was trying to catch my breath.

"Gods you look like shit, come on buddy, a few more crates and we can call it lunch break."

"Yeah" I began to choke and splutter after breathing in the sudden excess saliva in my mouth "Sorry Jr I'll get on it, was just taking a break to catch my breath" I wheezed out.

He turned and stomped back up the steps, and back onto the docks. Hastily I secured the fruit in a less obvious and more comfortable position, wiped the sweat off my face, and shakily got back to work. I unloaded the rest of the fruit faster than I ever had before, I was in a daze, my mind running a mile a minute considering the possibilities of this fruit.

Jr sneered at me, scribbling on his clipboard and puffing lazily on a cigar, the damn things had become very popular while Smoker was in charge and the fad hadn't died in the few months he had been gone. He finally looked up and drawled at me while giving me a once over, "Alright, finally you did some good work be back at 1 pm."

As I walked passed my boss, he gave me a suddenly very suspicious look and his eyes narrowed looking me up and down once again. Could he suspect something… I sped up clutching desperately at the fruit down my pants as I made haste to my mould-infested one-bed flat, which was thankfully close by. I slammed through the door and shut it similarly, immediately diving into my pants and grabbing the fruit. I just held it there in disbelief, it was a devil fruit, the real thing. This would change my life one way or another, but I had to be careful. The first step will be identifying what I'm working with here, in the east blue devil fruits are considered by most who don't have first-hand experience as a myth. This, however, is not Foosha village, this is Lougue town, once the home of the undefeated marine captain and smoke human 'Smoker the white hunter'. Along with some of the men's obsession with mimicking his smoking habits or wearing a jacket over their bare chest, most people gained a new fascination with devil fruits. Many evenings had been spent at the local bar pouring over a book the landlord had managed to acquire, titled the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia, authored by one Doctor Vegapunk.

With this in mind, I pried a loose floorboard of which there were many and stashed the fruit within, taking a mental picture of the pure white banana with black swirls running its length, and ran out the door. I had best be quick as people may come looking if I don't turn up for work, I look down at my watch, one passed down from my mother's father, it was 12.20. The bar, The Drunken Sailor, was nearby, in a basement not far from the docks, it was a working man's pub, favoured by older sailors and dockhands alike, one my father was seen in most days propping up the bar. I push in through the heavy wooden door, ducking slightly to avoid knocking my head, something that is second nature to me now, yet I still forgot half the time when leaving, the wood at the top having worn slightly over time from the many patrons' heads knocking hollowly against it. The smell hit me first of all, the dank and smoky must, half old tobacco and yeast, and the other half sweat and regret.

Standing at the bar was Indigo, a tall skinny woman in her mid-30s. She had straw-like hair and a large fin-lipped smile. "Ello love only saw you a few hours ago." She cawed at me with a smirk.

"Alright Indi, pint of bitter please," I asked while taking a seat at the bar on a trusty ancient wooden stool, "you got Roberto's Devil Fruit book about perchance."

She placed my drink in front of me and I almost spilled it down my lap in my haste, gulping it greedily, hoping it would calm my shaky nerves. Placing my beer lovingly down on the bar, I released a deep sigh, my shoulders easing slightly as my gaze traveled the room. I saw an open pack of Cleopatra smokes a little way down the bar. Those had to be Otto's, the only man who would smoke those dry Alabastan cigarettes, I reached over and plucked a few out, popping one in my mouth and pocketing the rest.

Smoking was a vice of mine when I was younger, my wife made me pack it in, not that I minded after watching how my father passed it felt right. Somehow today after finding that fruit it was as if the wind had changed. That all the rules of my old life no longer applied, the last of the loathsome shackles I had hauled my whole adult life fell away in an instant and I knew, as if stuck by a sudden epiphany, that I had taken my life back into my own hands. There would be no going back now.

I reached behind the bar when I knew Indi kept a couple of matches at all times and slid one against the bar igniting it with a flourish. I brought it to my face, pulling it deeply into my lungs the cigarette cracked and sizzled. The heat burned down my throat and into my chest, I waved the match out, dropped it on the floor, and let out a gargantuan nimbus of smoke. Even Captain Smoker would have been impressed, coughing and spluttering the whole time. God did that feel good, I drained the rest of the beer, my brain fizzing with nicotine and alcohol when Indi came back, I gave her a toothy grin and she looked at me like a stranger.

"Thanks Indi, you are a treasure."

She placed the book next to me and gave me a long searching look. Bartenders have to be good at figuring people out, I reckon, especially the women.

"What's this about then, I'm pretty sure you should be at work, and I'm definitely sure you don't smoke, and why the sudden interest in devil fruit, you usually scoff at the rest of us when we get the book out," she said with the same quizzical look leaning against the back of the bar, her arms crossed over her chest.

"You ever feel like in life you don't get many chances, and the few you get come when you're young and too stupid to notice, and the rest you always have something else more important" I began rattling off while puffing and flipping through pages.

She didn't say anything for a moment, looking at me with concern "I wouldn't know, I'm young and smart, what's that got to do with anything anyway?" she rebutted with a smirk.

"Well… I just got one, I reckon it's my last and it's definitely the biggest."

There it is, a white banana with spirals. I couldn't believe my eyes, this was it. I have a devil fruit, the… huh, Frog Frog Fruit: Model Glass Frog… Not exactly blown away, but beggars can't be choosers, I suppose I will be better off selling it than eating it, can't really see the advantage of being a glass frog, not that it isn't cool or anything… no selling is the best option here, who knows maybe I will find another one I pondered whilst giggling to myself.

"What the fuck is that meant to mean?" Inigo said incredulity dripping from her tone.

I looked back at her and slid the book across the bar, "Put the beer on my tab would you Indi, Gotta run."

I leapt up and set off to the bar remembering to duck my head as I left. I came out onto the street, the mid-afternoon sun blinding me briefly, I would have to avoid the docks as I'm now late for work and somebody may be looking for me.

"Oi, Algae you cheeky bugger, I should have guessed you was here after I saw Virgil Hapner's boy leave your apartment block with a couple of his dad's men, skived off to go pub you're just like yer old man, son" barked a sandpaper voice from up the road.

I felt a shiver shoot up my spine and looked over. It was Otto hobbling down the street. He was an old friend of my dad's in reality. This was not good news, if it was just Jr I might not be worried but if he had some of his dads ship guards with him it could mean trouble, I took off running once again back home, barrelling past Otto who was cackling a storm "I reckon its too late for that son you are fucked."

Fuck. fuck. Fuck. fuck. There is no way that fucker knows about the fruit. Shit. fuck. Gotta hurry.

I collapsed into the open doorway of my flat panting and wheezing uncontrollably, the place was a wreck, and stood in the centre was Gus Glint, standing at around 6'2 with a bulging belly and arms he was a surprisingly intimidating for a man who has spent the past 30 years sat on his arse collecting money. He was dressed in comfortable slacks and an untucked button-down.

"Well, you really fucked up Al, to think you would stoop this low. I'm gonna have to evict you, and you will be lucky if it ends there, I'm a good friend of Virgil's family and he innt gonna be happy with you" he folded his large hairy arms above his belly and looked at me down his nose, shaking his head in mocking disappointment "thank the lords, you never ate it or you would really be fucked."

"No, you can't be serious" I dropped down to my knees and dropped my head into my hands. I was shaking, my throat felt tight.

"They will have to get the Marines involved I'm afraid, and don't be expecting Captain Barker to go easy on you, bastard is even more of a hard ass than Smoker."

I could barely hear him, my body was red hot and my limbs were freezing cold with violent pins and needles in the extremities. I felt like I was about to pass out. A wave of heat crashed through my body, and suddenly everything changed, it felt like a change in atmosphere as my ears had a sudden whoosh sensation and my mind became focused to a pinprick.

Slowly I moved back to my feet, brushing off my work clothes and looking around my studio apartment. It was in shambles, but something on the wall grabbed my attention, a light outline of a sword, where an area of the wall had been blocked from the sun.

"My sword" I mumbled, looking at its former place of pride on the wall, it was the one keepsake of my father's naval career that neither he nor I could bear to pawn off no matter how tight money got.

Gus went silent his beady black eyes swivelled in slits to look at the wall, "I've taken it as collateral, seeing as you are out of work and you still owe this month's rent and damages for the state you left the flat in I'm gonna hold onto it till you pay me back" he rattled of seemingly feeling no shame over his actions.

"No" resolutely no.

"Plus with all the repairs it could take me months to get somebody new into this place, which I'm afraid I will have to add onto your bill, but I'm a fair man so I'll give you a month to come up with half the money" the swollen parasite continued to waffle on taking no measure of interest in me, his eyes scanning his property while he was mentally tallying a bill in his mind for repairs to the flat.

"Where is my sword, Gus?"

He looked over at me with a cold shrewdness in his eye, he let out a sigh of faux camaraderie and concern, like a disappointed teacher "Listen, buddy, it's safe in my flat uptown, that's the least of your concerns, you gotta leave, this ain't your flat no more" he started walking towards me "I ain't joking son, NOW!" he bellowed suddenly.

He expected me to jump out of my boots, but I stayed put. From this day on, I'm not moving an inch. I vow to 'Gold Roger' and 'Straw Hat Luffy' and all the men who didn't give a damn what anyone else thought. I grabbed Gus' collar and punched him as hard as I could square in his nose. There was an almighty crack as his nose gave way but I kept pushing till I ended up rolling past him onto the floor and he went spinning to the right.

He gave a pained but wild roar, bouncing off the wall over my sofa and through what was left of my coffee table, landing in a pile of broken glass and splintered wood. While I bounced off the wall and caught myself on my knee. Gus stumbled to his feet looking meaner than a sea king, blood was leaking down his nose and down his chin.

He swung out a heavy boot and kicked me right in the knee I had landed on, sending me sprawling to the floor with a high-pitched groan.

A whine, it was a whine.

The bigger man got on me, one knee on either side of my chest, one of his knees digging into my left bicep, the feeling was hot agony. one hand gripping my neck with white-knuckled rage, the other grabbing onto my hair, smashing my skull into the floor.

I felt hot and cold and my vision went black, the hits weren't particularly strong, but fast and violent. In a mad effort to make him stop, my right hand grappled along the floor, finally, I managed to grab onto something and swing it at his side, just underneath his armpit.

Rather than a crack or a smash, all I heard was a dull thump, I think subconsciously I knew what I grabbed, had sought it out even. Somehow knowing what and where it was. the stained and polished handle of my prized kitchen knife. An old keepsake from my ex-wife, she got it for me as a gift, and using the skills my dad taught me I kept it, like his sword, meticulously sharp.

Gus didn't scream or howl. he let out a soft croaking whine, as he knelt over me and felt at the wound. His face had so suddenly gone sweaty and pale. He began to grimace and move to his feet shackled. Swaying haphazardly side to side as he stumbled to the door, as I pulled myself up and watched in disbelief.

He made it a few steps off when he fell forward to his knees and collapsed sideways against the door. He looked up at me, mostly in confusion, and I looked back down at him. I assume with much the same expression. He let out the odd garble and I wanted to say something to make sense of this, I wanted to say I'm sorry and I was, but what would be the point now. In the next moment, he was gone, slumped completely, no different from all my broken furniture and scattered possessions.

There would be no going back now.

I had to get that fruit back and leave Logue town for good.