Straight On Till Morning

by Liz Braswell

Low clouds do not blanket the sky, for that implies coziness and comfort. No, these clouds mask the sky, weigh on the sky, choke the sky. They are strengthened by smoke from below, the trickling-upward effluence of a hundred thousand chimneys that decorate the landscape like unhealthily angular flowers.

And what was a pirate, really, but a boy grown, with a real sword and a mustache?

“That was what you bargained for—and that was all you bargained for. “I never promised to put you ashore.”