Juho Pohjalainen's Blog: Pankarp - Posts Tagged "ships"
Being a Pirate is not all right to be
Yesterday I mentioned wanting to write about pirates. Unfortunately, the idea stuck.
Despite modern romanticization, it wasn't much fun being a pirate. You'd spend weeks at a time in a small ship, rotting and rocking and creaking, and filled up to the brim with these brutes and morons that you would hate within a week, if not right away. The food was terrible and there wasn't enough fruit, nobody really knew how to sing but they wouldn't shut up either, the smell was awful but you couldn't afford to waste the drinking water to baths, personal time was right out, and the scenery was the same bloody ocean day after day, maybe a dolphin as a high point. The all too occasional moments of levity consisted of ship battle and raids, storms, cannibal islands, sea serpents or giant octopi, and mutiny - any of them all too viable of getting you killed.
Shore leaves were rare and lasted all too little time before someone upset the locals and you had to flee. Not like you could stay with a bounty on your head. Worse still, your favourite place got annexed by the Empire sometime since you last showed up, and this local voodoo witch was calling all ships to war. What were you supposed to do, ignore this attack on your way of life? Even if you hated every second of it?
If you were lucky, you might have won a few bouts and earned a chest full of silver for your trouble. If you were really lucky, your captain might even have let you spend it all on supplies, alcohol, and women, instead of burying it to some deserted island for some gods'-forsaken reason. If you were unlucky, you would get to hear an Imperial messenger bird cheerfully announce that a torpedo was on its way...
Then, whether because your ship was blown apart and you marooned there, or because you disobeyed your captain about that treasure nonsense, you'd end up all alone in one of those deserted islands. No one to talk to save for some birds and this bowling ball with a face. No more of the songs you once hated; no more being made to perform something stupid in front of a big crowd. Your friends either blew apart and drowned, or betrayed you and abandoned you here: either way it's now just you and your thoughts - and those strange noises of the jungle, unnerving you and keeping you awake at night. No one to keep watch for you here either, reassure you that it was nothing and that it would all turn up well.
Your life used to be as bad as you thought it could get: you thought hell was other people. But now, as the night falls and the mists roll in, you would almost go back to those old days you once hated.
Hell is other people. But hell is being alone, as well. In this chapter of your life, there is precious little middleground to be found. Your attempts at compromise only end with everything going worse for you and everyone around you. All your friends have died. Even love is fleeting and often ends in heartbreak.
There's a theme I can use here. Something to underline all the merry swashbuckling action.
Despite modern romanticization, it wasn't much fun being a pirate. You'd spend weeks at a time in a small ship, rotting and rocking and creaking, and filled up to the brim with these brutes and morons that you would hate within a week, if not right away. The food was terrible and there wasn't enough fruit, nobody really knew how to sing but they wouldn't shut up either, the smell was awful but you couldn't afford to waste the drinking water to baths, personal time was right out, and the scenery was the same bloody ocean day after day, maybe a dolphin as a high point. The all too occasional moments of levity consisted of ship battle and raids, storms, cannibal islands, sea serpents or giant octopi, and mutiny - any of them all too viable of getting you killed.
Shore leaves were rare and lasted all too little time before someone upset the locals and you had to flee. Not like you could stay with a bounty on your head. Worse still, your favourite place got annexed by the Empire sometime since you last showed up, and this local voodoo witch was calling all ships to war. What were you supposed to do, ignore this attack on your way of life? Even if you hated every second of it?
If you were lucky, you might have won a few bouts and earned a chest full of silver for your trouble. If you were really lucky, your captain might even have let you spend it all on supplies, alcohol, and women, instead of burying it to some deserted island for some gods'-forsaken reason. If you were unlucky, you would get to hear an Imperial messenger bird cheerfully announce that a torpedo was on its way...
Then, whether because your ship was blown apart and you marooned there, or because you disobeyed your captain about that treasure nonsense, you'd end up all alone in one of those deserted islands. No one to talk to save for some birds and this bowling ball with a face. No more of the songs you once hated; no more being made to perform something stupid in front of a big crowd. Your friends either blew apart and drowned, or betrayed you and abandoned you here: either way it's now just you and your thoughts - and those strange noises of the jungle, unnerving you and keeping you awake at night. No one to keep watch for you here either, reassure you that it was nothing and that it would all turn up well.
Your life used to be as bad as you thought it could get: you thought hell was other people. But now, as the night falls and the mists roll in, you would almost go back to those old days you once hated.
Hell is other people. But hell is being alone, as well. In this chapter of your life, there is precious little middleground to be found. Your attempts at compromise only end with everything going worse for you and everyone around you. All your friends have died. Even love is fleeting and often ends in heartbreak.
There's a theme I can use here. Something to underline all the merry swashbuckling action.
Pankarp
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