playingthepianodrunk
February 22nd, 2013, 05:16 AM
So I wrote this just to get the idea down. It is kind of a bare bones deal and I am open to suggestions to improve on this when the time comes that I made devote to it my full attention. So please any thoughts you have on how the story can be improved, how it could be more interesting, what to add, subtract and so on.
He was said to be ubiquitous by his rivals. Though a fearsome and competent captain he was the less credulous dismissed this as mere superstition. Then how else to explain his attacks in different hemispheres in only a matter of a few days. Had he found a secret to the current that allowed him to travel swiftly and without interruption? Or was there something supernatural in his being?
It was a sunny and brilliant day and the craft, flying no flag, floated gently over the blue abyss. All hands were busy on deck as the captain paced back and forth smoking his pipe. Now let us take a minute to describe this man because nothing can be said to be imposing about his figure. He was a short man round and Napoleonesque. In appearance he was immaculate, his clothes and shoes so pristine they appeared to give off a preternatural glow. In his posture he was also self-conscious standing so upright as to almost lean backwards at an eighty-five degree angle. And there was his pipe which was almost inseparable from his image.
Such an unsettling mysteriousness he created around himself drove the sailors to almost superhuman feats of effort. And true he never addressed his crew directly, always relaying his precise commands to one of his officers. And these officers were more than any other crewman kept off balance.
So for days the ship had been slyly tracking a British merchant ship traveling back from Peru said to be carrying great treasure. Finally in the great and lonesome open waters of the South Atlantic the captain began making final preparations for an attack. As always the plan was nearly without flaw and if not every scenario accounted for, every scenario except heavenly intervention. So over the horizon the target appeared, the cruiser closing distance. Four imposing Negro savages stomped the deck in trance-like preparation for battle as every other sailor manned weapons even the cooks. Only those with duties absolutely essential to the ships operation remained unarmed.
And with such a reputation the conquer and looting would be accomplished with little resistance, it was even said in some instances the sailors on the boarded ship would even assist with the off loading of merchandise. And if a too proud captain made too big a show into the murky waters he went never to arise again.
Closing in until pulling aside and announcing its presence and receiving indication of surrender all men began to descend to the merchant ship when most surprisingly the enemy sailor drew rifles and began firing as an explosion rocked the starboard side. A British warship appeared and it was all clear what had happened. Not to say the fight was brief and that the men did not fight valiantly but having been caught off guard the pirate ship ultimately succumb to it's injures and sank into the murky depths. The captains approach relied on stealth and cunning greed had blinded him and he committed the single act of stupidity he had fled his whole life.
So the ship sank through the murky depths and it most have sank through so deep an oceanic trench as to pass to the other side of the world and it began to rise. The mangled ship began to rise as the sun became brighter and brighter escaping bubbles rising to the surface but not the surface of an ocean but more a contained body as a lake. Though a most unusual lake, nearly perfectly round perhaps one thousand yards across. So the ship finally reached the surface shooting through the meniscus like a bar of soap held under the water. And despite the mortal damage the ship received in these waters it did not sink rather floated like an ice cube. The shock was so violent that the expired captain regained consciousness and slowly gathered himself. Though all thought told him this was an impossibility, perhaps the last hallucinations of a dying brain, he gazed from the blood soaked decks of his once proud ship to a lush oasis. The captain wept as he thought it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. The surface of this miniature sea was littered with manky boats like his own, snapped masts and fractured hulls all still floating, some by his reckoning most have been at least three hundred years old maybe more, all looking as though they were just christened.
He was said to be ubiquitous by his rivals. Though a fearsome and competent captain he was the less credulous dismissed this as mere superstition. Then how else to explain his attacks in different hemispheres in only a matter of a few days. Had he found a secret to the current that allowed him to travel swiftly and without interruption? Or was there something supernatural in his being?
It was a sunny and brilliant day and the craft, flying no flag, floated gently over the blue abyss. All hands were busy on deck as the captain paced back and forth smoking his pipe. Now let us take a minute to describe this man because nothing can be said to be imposing about his figure. He was a short man round and Napoleonesque. In appearance he was immaculate, his clothes and shoes so pristine they appeared to give off a preternatural glow. In his posture he was also self-conscious standing so upright as to almost lean backwards at an eighty-five degree angle. And there was his pipe which was almost inseparable from his image.
Such an unsettling mysteriousness he created around himself drove the sailors to almost superhuman feats of effort. And true he never addressed his crew directly, always relaying his precise commands to one of his officers. And these officers were more than any other crewman kept off balance.
So for days the ship had been slyly tracking a British merchant ship traveling back from Peru said to be carrying great treasure. Finally in the great and lonesome open waters of the South Atlantic the captain began making final preparations for an attack. As always the plan was nearly without flaw and if not every scenario accounted for, every scenario except heavenly intervention. So over the horizon the target appeared, the cruiser closing distance. Four imposing Negro savages stomped the deck in trance-like preparation for battle as every other sailor manned weapons even the cooks. Only those with duties absolutely essential to the ships operation remained unarmed.
And with such a reputation the conquer and looting would be accomplished with little resistance, it was even said in some instances the sailors on the boarded ship would even assist with the off loading of merchandise. And if a too proud captain made too big a show into the murky waters he went never to arise again.
Closing in until pulling aside and announcing its presence and receiving indication of surrender all men began to descend to the merchant ship when most surprisingly the enemy sailor drew rifles and began firing as an explosion rocked the starboard side. A British warship appeared and it was all clear what had happened. Not to say the fight was brief and that the men did not fight valiantly but having been caught off guard the pirate ship ultimately succumb to it's injures and sank into the murky depths. The captains approach relied on stealth and cunning greed had blinded him and he committed the single act of stupidity he had fled his whole life.
So the ship sank through the murky depths and it most have sank through so deep an oceanic trench as to pass to the other side of the world and it began to rise. The mangled ship began to rise as the sun became brighter and brighter escaping bubbles rising to the surface but not the surface of an ocean but more a contained body as a lake. Though a most unusual lake, nearly perfectly round perhaps one thousand yards across. So the ship finally reached the surface shooting through the meniscus like a bar of soap held under the water. And despite the mortal damage the ship received in these waters it did not sink rather floated like an ice cube. The shock was so violent that the expired captain regained consciousness and slowly gathered himself. Though all thought told him this was an impossibility, perhaps the last hallucinations of a dying brain, he gazed from the blood soaked decks of his once proud ship to a lush oasis. The captain wept as he thought it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. The surface of this miniature sea was littered with manky boats like his own, snapped masts and fractured hulls all still floating, some by his reckoning most have been at least three hundred years old maybe more, all looking as though they were just christened.