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Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Renegade Marie

10 days. 10 days until I'm back to the abnormality I consider normal. Back to the stages and the footlights and the nights spent alone in a frozen truckbed some place west of nowhere. Back to bleeding throats and microphones and staying as connected with disconnection as possible. Back to making friends I'll never remember and cities I'll pray to forget. Back to that strange place where nobody really knows me and the lines between fact and fiction become tainted, blurred and pixilated. Back to ambiguous relevance. Back to normal.
Normal? Normal is the most broken thing I've ever encountered. I'm ecstatic.
              I wrote this story last night. One of those random tales full of piracy, scorn and sorrow. It's all about this child who, upon his mother's death, finds himself aboard a war-vessel named the Marie. Over time, it's proven that the boy is a talented warrior and passionate leader. As the ship seeks to purge the seas of villainy, the boy's confidence grows to pride and his arrogance leads to the brutal slaughter of those he's sent to capture. The furious Brigadier locks the boy away, in hope that by punishing his waywardness, he can build him into a man of character to one day take his place.
The plans are foiled, however, when the crew, impressed with the boy's brutal tendencies, free the lad and plot mutiny against their leader. Forcing the Brigadier into a chest, they feed him to the sea and turn the ship toward land in hope to gain the wealth they've long desired. Weeks pass and the boy turns the ship into a callous ruckus and the crew to a viscous band of marauding outsiders. Meanwhile, a chest - full of lifelessness - lies still, cold and soaked on a beach somewhere. It's morning there and a young child chases his dog down the shoreline and sees the discarded wreckage. Assuming the treasures it contains, the child rushes home and drags his father back to the coast. Breaking it open they find, not the jewels they expected, but the Brigadier - dripping and still - but, somehow, clinging desperately to life; praying only to stop the now Renegade Marie. Days pass and the captain recovers. Assembling a vagabond crew of tired vigilantes, he makes haste to stop the plight of his former assemblage.

                  Sails are seen on the horizon...

...Cannons are prepared....  

                               ...a malignant smile crosses the young captain's face...

       ....a prayer of vengeance falls through the Brigadier's lips...
 
...seconds feel like hours as generations                            prepare for the                                       long awaited final conflict...
         ...Silence...

            ...10-9-8...                             
                             ...7-6-5-4...
                                             ...3-2-1...                                                              
Everything goes hazy among the gunfire and blinding billows of  blackened smoke. Men flood the decks as blood runs like rivers through the cracks and dents in the wood. It's a bloodbath of murderous extravagance. Through the swords and the mire, the captains strain their eyes in search of one another. Swords crash and the cannons roar as the sky opens up and sends its own flurry of ammunition upon the scuffle. At last they meet, the old, tired captain and his his youthful mutineer. No words are spoken, but the beat of their pounding hearts strike envy to the soul of thunder. There is no fight; just a smile as the lad effortlessly strikes the old mariner to his knees and stands above him. A single blow and it's over. No climax. No over-drawn plea for life. Just mercilessness. The lad stares awhile then, leaving the body, returns to his room. The fighting stops - what's the purpose now? Silence. Everyone watches as the door to the captain's quarters closes and the blinds are drawn tightly shut. what happens now?  Eventually the crews separate and depart; gathering their dead as they sort through the senseless chaos.
Eventually, someone finds the courage to enter the young captain's room, only to see him there, silently sitting behind his desk - back to the door - facing the ocean beyond the window. "Should we throw him to the sea?" the man inquires. Silence. A nod. The door closes. Footsteps can be heard above. A brief pause, followed by the once fearless Brigadier dropping quickly past his murderer's window and into the ever grateful arms of the welcoming sea. What irony. The storm has calmed and the wind plays with the body a moment; sending papers from his pockets flying through the air before the waves at last consume him. Down the body sinks. Lifelessness to the abyss. The captain watches in fulfillment as the papers rise in the salty air and rest, sticking against his window. Small words here, a picture there. A picture? What familiar faces smile through his window? The boy leaps from his seat and rushes closer to confirm the horror he witnessed. What truth arrived un-welcomed - for staring through the window was the face he'd loved forever - the face of the mother he'd lost in youth. A rushing flood of tears fill his eyes as he clutches hopelessly at the glass in vain attempt to grab hold of the picture. He beats the panes and the room shakes with biting torment. He screams as a convicting flow of contrasting emotion engulfs him and collapses, crumbling in a heap upon the floor in exhausted misery; weeping at the awareness that by his arrogance he'd slain the very one who gave him life. From father to son, captain to captain, a ship passed through bloodlines and inherited by lines of blood upon the ocean floor. The reality overcomes him. Hours pass.
The picture leaves the window and the boy is left with nothing. A mere lad, dressed in the stolen garments of a murdered ship's captain, orphaned by his own resentment and left only with the riches of the sorrow he'd scornfully sewn...

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