After trying for fifteen minutes the dog would not let go of the orange. Ezra did the only thing she could think of. She picked up the dog and walked back to Kial’s place.
In the marketplace, the man turned around and faced Lilim with the orange in his hand.
“Why do you keep following me?!”
Without saying a word, Lilim snatched the half eaten fruit from the man’s hand and walked away.
“Hey!”
The man didn’t follow. He thought maybe it was safer to just let this one go. He picked another orange out of his bag and continued on.
On their way back to Kial’s, Lillu and Zophiel kept snatching the orange away from the other playing keep away. While playing however, Zophiel and Lillu had their hands both on the orange and pulled away from each other. The orange tore in half right down the middle of the ‘X’. They looked at each other then started yelling and choking each other in the middle of the street.
Ezra was the second to come back. In her arms was the dog with the orange still in his mouth. She set the dog on my lap and sat across the room in the chair and crossed her arms. I made eye contact with the dog.
“Spit it.” I said.
The dog spit out the orange next to me. It was covered in slobber, but it was there.
Next was Lilim. She walked up and saw she was third. She handed me her half peeled and eaten orange and sat next to Ariel and took off her gas mask. The ‘X’ was still on the half of the orange that wasn’t eaten, so I counted it.
Last were Lillu and Zophiel. Each handed me half of the orange and sat across the room from each other.
How amusing.
“So girls,” I started, “I was supposed to end up with five oranges but somehow ended up with three half oranges, a orange covered in slobber and a dog. Care to explain?”
Then like madness, all the girls started yelling at once. I can’t say I didn’t ask for it. I raised my hand and they all quieted.
“The winner of the mystery prize goes to Ariel who brought me the orange only ten minutes after the contest started.”
Ariel who was on the couch reading a magazine looked up and smiled. A little competition between friends was always healthy.
“Ariel,” I said, “come over here and claim your mystery prize.”
Ariel set the magazine down and walked over. She stood in front of me as I clipped the bracelet Atticus had bought me in Lumina on her tiny wrist and said, “Congrats to the winner.”
The other girls didn’t say a word.
“How about we go find Atticus and have him treat us all to some well deserved ice cream?” I asked.
The girls smiled and stood up. I walked behind Ariel who had a smiled the rest of the day. In her back pocket was a sharpie marker she had used to draw an ‘X’ on an orange she found at a fruit stand. She was right, she did think like me. I wasn’t stupid. I could smell the fresh sharpie when she handed me the orange but to be fair I never told the girls that they couldn’t cheat.
At the end of the weekend I waved goodbye to the Little’s as I watched them walk back home. Three weeks till I’d see them again—- thank God. Atticus walked past them, his alcohol stench trailed close behind. The girl’s didn’t notice and swooned over him, their brains ran wild with the thought of him romantically by their side-- I gagged at the smell.
“We got a job lined up tomorrow.” I told him. “Best get some rest… and a shower”
Atticus wobbled then fell to the ground and passed out. I walked away. As if I was going to carry him.
Chapter Six: Miss Misery Part 1
My dream tonight differed from the other because it was of an actual place I’d been when I was young. In the middle of the desert there was a ship roasting in the sun. Coral and reefs had covered the massive wreck from its time under the ocean-- a battleship sunk during war. The ocean had long dried up and left the titanic ship stranded in what was now a vast wasteland of sand and rock.
Growing up, I had claimed the ship as my personal playground; eating lunch high up on the deck and pretending I was shooting down aircraft with its immense, rusted shut cannons-- those things were awesome.
In the dream I could see other stranded ships far out in the distance and paranoid they were pirates, I readied myself for what I thought would be an inevitable attack that never came. Like fog, a sandstorm encased the ship without warning and sandblasted my body. I put my gas mask over my face and took charge of the ship trying to steer it clear. The harsh winds pushed against its rusted side and made the metal creak and moan. Faded white letters stamped on the side of the ship read, The S.S. Misery. What a gloomy name to give such a fine ship, I thought, as if from the time it was born it was cursed-- sounded familiar.
The sandstorm passed and at the bow of the ship was a silhouette of a young man. With the sun behind him, it was hard to make out a face but I knew he was smiling, probably at the young girl he had just watched play pirate. When I called out to him, he put both arms up in the air and then vanished-- fallen overboard off the side. I rushed to the side of the ship in hopes to catch a better glimpse but before I reach I tripped on the boats cleat used to tie the boat off to a dock and plummeted down towards the hot sand. It wasn’t a fast fall, more like falling through jelly, as dreams usually are. You can feel the stuff all around you but it doesn’t stop you from falling. Right before I hit the ground, guess what-- I woke up. Surprise surprise.
But I didn’t just wake up anywhere, I woke up in a place I didn’t remember falling asleep. A small circular window was my only light inside the metal coffin. My body was sprawled out on the hardest bed man could engineer. I’m sure someone got a great discount for buying the awful mattresses in bulk. Then I felt it-- an earthquake? No. It was too slow to be an earthquake. The sway recharged my memory and I remembered where I was, slamming the pillow over my face—- still in the middle of the ocean.
I got dressed and made my way up to the top deck. There, as if I had planned it myself, Atticus stood looking out into the distant whole-lot-of-nothing. Water, water and more water. The funny thing about being out at sea is even though you’re surrounded by water, none of it is drinkable and I was starting to feel the back of my throat get dry. If I had to describe the look on Atticus’ face in one word it’d be denial. He used any chance he got to escape me by staring off and letting his mind wonder to who knows where. I couldn’t blame him though; I didn’t want to be here either. I just wanted to know what he was drifting away to. Luckily for me, all it took was a friendly slap on the head to get him to come back from Never Neverland and he turned around giving me a look like I ruined the only fun he’d have on the trip.
“See anything?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“Well we’re suppose to be looking out for pirates, so I guess that means we suck at our job.”
“I thought pirates were suppose to find you, not the other way around.”
“Maybe if they hear of a man overboard they’ll come to rescue you-- I mean him.”
“Ha-ha, isn’t it time for you to stuff your face with food, like every other hour of the day?”
I looked at my wrist even though I didn’t have a watch. My stomach growled.
“Sounds about right to me.” I reply. “Care to join me?”
“I already ate. I’ll keep a eye out.”
“Suit yourself. Don’t work too hard.”
“That’s the problem.”
I stuck out my tongue at him and my stomach reminded me of its urgent needs. Was it me or did Atticus seem a little more down then usual? Oh well, chow time!
After I filled my inner desires I made my way back to my room and opened my suitcase. The glimmer of the canisters caught my eye. Since my last encounter with the canisters wasn’t as effective as I’d hoped, I had Kial custom make some that broadened my offensive and defenses-- I promised myself I’d test them out later.
About a week ago Atticus and I had l
eft port. We were going cross-country on a tanker that carried trade goods to sell overseas. In the last couple month’s pirates had been seizing ships, stealing the goods and selling them on the black market. We were paid by a company to keep the goods intact and on time. It just took me a bit longer than I’d hoped to get my sea legs. Five days in a row of throwing up wasn’t very menacing—- but at least I was keeping a slim figure.
Besides annoying Atticus, there wasn’t much else to do on a tanker while in route. The crew’s only useful if you wanted to hear the same dirty jokes a thousand times and it wasn’t like you could go out and see a movie. We were only supposed to be on the ship for four weeks but it’d been less than a week and I was already over it.
Then one night, I got a tug on my fishing line. A small pirate ship had flanked behind us, caught up and matched our speed. When they started to board our ship, Atticus woke me up.
Because it was night I grabbed two of my new canisters; one had a picture of a sun with a happy face I called Second Sun. It was like a flash grenade mixed with a flare only times ten. The other canister had the words “K.O”. It had pressurized gas that worked like an anesthetic. Once the victim took a deep breath of this magic dust they’d be out like a baby-- the only downside was it just didn’t last that long. Kial’s working on fixing that-- uh, maybe.
Gas mask, knife, canister holsters and canisters-- I think I’m actually fully prepared for a change. I turned on my dark side and tried to kick open the door; it didn’t work but I didn’t care. Screw discreet, Darth Vader’s coming for your butt! I hoped they crap themselves when they see my menacing persona.
Out on the deck it was calm and quiet. The moonlight glistened off the water. I heard the jingle of the pirates as they moved up through the ship zapping crew unconscious with a taser. Primitive weapons-- I liked the odds. Then, as if I had flipped a light switch, I tossed one of the Second Sun canisters up in the air and lit up the ship for miles around. The light was too bright to look at so I had Kial engineer welder’s glass into my gas mask-- with a push of a button I had instant sunglasses.
The pirates shielded their eyes as they ran back to their ship.
“Peek-a-boo! Aw, where you guys going,” I shouted muffled through my mask, “the buried treasure is this way.”
I popped the K.O. canister and tossed it right onto a pirates’ head. The canister bounced off and showered him with sandman sand-- I hoped Freddie Krueger didn’t get to him before I had a chance to give him a new hole to breath out of. I flew up the up the deck to my sleeping beauty but one of his pirate buddies picked him up and ran away before I carve him up like a pumpkin. I chased them down but they kamikazed off our ship and onto theirs—- the chickens. Like that was going to stop me.
Just like in the action movies I jumped off the ledge after them and Mary Poppins’ it down onto their ship. Atticus took a moment out of his shooting match with a stragglier to see me do it. You couldn’t tell but under my mask I was smiling-- evil smile but smile none the less.
My landing however wasn’t so supercalifragilistic. With a loud thud, the side of my body hit the hardwood floor of their ship knocking the wind out of my stomach-- I needed to work on those. The vibration shot through my body like a bullet all the way up my spine. I didn’t know it at the time but I had dented a few of my canisters. Lucky for them they didn’t go off while still strapped to my body otherwise they’d have to clean my remains off the poop deck.
I stood up and looked to my left. The two pirates I chased down were close by-- the unconscious being dragged by the conscious. Then their friends decided to show up and ruin everything. They drew out long swords from their sides-- what was this, the 1800’s? I drew out my knife and braced for attack. Two pirates crisscrossed down the ship towards me. I tossed them a couple Second Sun’s each but it didn’t slow them down from getting within arms distance. Metal sparked as we danced together taking turns to see who could cut whom first and as much as it turned me on, I needed a little backup.
Click, drop, boom-- instant smoke screen. I wondered how it felt getting a lung full of chemicals burning down your throat. Thanks to my short intermission, the teams evened out. The pirate boat sailed away from our tanker and my smoke screen went away with it revealing two bleeding pirates at my feet. Five crew left and one was already tucked in for the night-- and here I was forgetting to tell him a bedside story. I crept through the boat looking for the man I knocked out. Hiding-- I hate it when they hide. Grown men should never hide from a girl, even if she does have murderous intentions!
I made my way down to the lower deck and guess what little o’ me found. In front of me was none other than the biggest pile of ‘gold’ I’d ever seen-- loot from the cargo ships. I combed the lower deck and found nothing but dead rats. I figured that one of these guys had to be driving the ship and I worked my way cautiously towards the stern.
When I reached the top again I peeked through the glass window and saw no one. Ghost pirate ship full of loot? I could taste the cliché in my mouth and wanted to gag. Then from behind I felt a sharp prick on my neck. I turned around and that’s when my world went blurry. Fuckers stuck me with a needle of some kind of drug. All I could mutter before passing out on the deck was, “Cunts.“
***
When I woke I knew one of two things had happened. Either my weapons had been stripped from me or my clothes had been. Luckily I could feel my cotton wife-beater on my shoulders even though I couldn’t quite see it yet. A splash of cold water hit me like a truck and I could hear men laughing. I looked up at their idiotic grinning faces.
“Worse wet t-shirt contest ever boys, I’m the only participant and the judges look like a bunch of dead men.”
That got a rise out of some of them. That’s right, flood your tiny brains with anger so you can’t think straight and I buy more time untying myself. One of the pukes leans in close to my face and gave me a look like he wanted to bite my nose off.
“You got a nasty mouth for such a pretty face.”
“Yeah? You got nasty breath for such a ugly one.”
Mr. Morning Breath didn’t like that at all. He kicked my chair over and my body followed. Maybe I should wait until I untie myself next time before making fun of their hygiene.
“When you’re done staring up my skirt,” I yell to the small group of three, “and want to talk business let me know. I’ll be down here making out with the rats.”
Two of the men helped me back up. I grinned at Morning Breath. Even though the fall bruised my face, it helped loosen the ropes around my hands. Before Morning Breath could say his next sentence my hands were free but I didn’t let on.
“Who are you?” Morning Breath asked.
“I go by the dreaded name of Mrs. Go Fuck Yourself. You might have heard of me.”
Morning Breath didn’t look amused. He held out a few of my canisters.
“Where did you get these?”
“What, you mean those aren’t cans of refried beans? That’s what they told me at the grocery store. Now how am I going to make those burritos?”
He gripped the canister in his hand and used it to punch me in the face. Not going to lie-- it hurt. A lot. Last man that did that I took my time killing. But like all pain it didn’t last long.
“Are you done being stupid?” he asked.
I licked up the blood on my lip.
“Keep it coming Morning Breath, you’ve got little girlie hands.”
He pulled back his arm for another. That’s when I decide this was getting old. I used my free hands and gripped his punch mid-air. The look on his face was priceless. I stood up with my feet still tied to the chair.
“Have a seat!”
I pulled his arm towards me, grabbed his head and slam it into my chair. The force of his body cracked the wooden chair—- must have been from Ikea. The thing basically disintegrated. I stomped hard on the K.O. canister gripped in Morning Breath??
?s hand. He screamed in pain but it didn’t last long before he passed out from the gas. He’ll feel that when he wakes up.
The two pirates left were too preoccupied trying to hide the piss stains on their pants to fight me. I hit one over the head and the other lied down and put his hands up-- some scourge of the seven seas. I kicked him in the ribs, grabbed my gear and walked out to the deck only to find we’d been docked the whole time.
“Son of a…” I mutter out loud. I went back and gave the guy laying down another kick in the ribs.
I jumped off and praised the land Gods. I never thought it would be so nice to walk more than thirty feet in one direction. My stomach growled and I knew it was telling me I could explore all I wanted after I slid some food down my throat.
I stepped inside what looked like a shitty bar. Good thing about places like this-- even though the place looked condemned, the foods fantastic. Before I knew it I got a hot plate of lobster sitting in front of me making my mouth water. And then, in a blink of an eye, it was gone and I was no longer hungry.
“Thanks for the food.” I yelled as I made my way to the door.
“Hold up,” the bartender yelled back.
I could hear the click as he pulled back the lever on his pistol.
“You forgot to pay your bill.”
I turned around and faced him.
“I didn’t FORGET anything because I don’t have any money!”
He… didn’t like that answer.
“Don’t worry, we accept body parts as payment.”
I remembered the days when all a girl had to do was bat an eye and show a little skin to make money problems go away. From the shine off his wedding ring and the hottie wife standing in the corner, I could tell this guy wasn’t going to have any of it.
“Listen,” I started, “it’s been a rough day so unless you want to end up another feather tattoo on my back, I suggest you go back behind your bar like a good little boy and keep serving your fire water cause the more you talk the more I want to find out if your blood runs red like everyone else’s you sorry ass talky talk meat puppet!”