The water never moves down here, and it is always dark. We believe it should be cold as well, but as we do not feel, we don't know quite for sure. The water is settled snug around us, constantly breaking our bones and caving us in, but our thoughts still occasionally zing through what is left of this brain.

Physically. Spiritually. Sane.

Have we been down here for hours or centuries? It feels like both or none, and the only constant reminder that we be still earthbound is the ever-insistent tug of the leather straps that hold us tied to this blasted canon.

We do try and move our broken fingers through the water, which weights around us like sun-baked adobe clay, and though we don't never make it all the way, we be certain that one day the salt water will corrode the leather and our body will eventually make it to shore. However the question we do ponder, when these thoughts be coherent, is whether or not we will be dead and broken, or alive... and broken.

Aye, we did curse the crew of the Black Pearl, true, but the curse they laid on us were far worse than anything could ever be done to them.

Down here, in the dark and murky depths, we ain't got nothing but time.

Time to think when we can. Time to drift when it permits. Time to stare out into the black, when our eyeballs be not shriveled in salt water. We close 'em for a good, solid stretch and they do reform.

We think of a young boy with dark hair and eyes, the color of the water around us, were it not quite so black, but a bit more brown-like. We cannot remember his name, and we be not quite sure who he is, but he does comfort us at times. The thought of him.

Sometimes we do remember the pounding of the ocean's waves and the thrum of life from her, but down here, there ain't nothing that ain't dead or ghostly. We aren't quite certain what we'd be calling ourselves, but alive we ain't, and dead we're not, either.

Perhaps, we sometimes think we be in purgatory, awaiting the judgment of the Lord. 'Cept then we be remembering that we never much believed in that sort of rubbish, and so we are back in the still waters again, and it is not as warm as it was when we thought we might meet Him.

Were we ever up above?

We think of the sun, but cannot even fathom it. We desire to cry, but we have no tears, and the salt water around us believes she can compensate, but she knows it is no comparison.

We wish to feel our hands on that wooden wheel and hear the hollow thud of our boots on deck, and why we can remember that, we will never know.

But it does bring a smile to our broken face, it does.

END.

Return to Archive