George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Which led to a lot of damage to the ship, and time at the dock for repairs.
George drew up plans and made a list of things needed for repairs:
Boards, saws, nails, screws, pitch and tar…
The problem was, George had proudly adopted the Metric System.
While his crewmates used the English Imperial system.
Measurements were way off, and the ship ended up a patchwork mess.
The captain made George walk the plank.
Which was three meters long, not three feet.
George fell in the shark-infested water anyway.
Author: R.
George’s concussion protocol
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He sat at a busy corner and held a sign that said: NOT A VERY GOOD PIRATE.
Passersby put money in his hat, and he’d growl and leer at them.
Now and then, someone would talk to George.
He just blankly drooled.
After a few days, a doctor came by and examined George.
“Okay, you no longer have a concussion,” he said. “Go back to your ship.”
George returned home with a hat full of money.
The captain smiled, and bonked George on the head again with a cannonball.
George’s diary
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He kept a diary of his misadventures hidden in the ship’s rowboat.
Every night, he’d lower the boat into the water, row the boat a few yards away from the ship, and wrote by candlelight.
Then he’d stash the diary, row back to the ship, and put everything back into place before going to sleep.
His shipmates would sneak peaks at the diary, and they enjoyed the stories that George wrote.
So, they’d come up with all new ways to torment George, and looked forward to reading about them.
Weekly Challenge #896 – PICK TWO Reviewal, Painfully shy, Rats, Translation, Crack of dawn, Shine
LISA
A Proud Murid Mother of Seven
Her babies were born during a summer thunderstorm. She nurtured them in a disused ventilation shaft whilst secretly dreading the day they’d leave the nest.
She prepared them well though – taught them about hawks, owls, cats and foxes even racoons although there weren’t many of those to be found around Digbeth Coach Station. She warned them of the temptation of poison bait boxes, and the dangers of eating cold kebab meat straight from the bin.
They first ventured out at the crack of dawn. They stuck closely together but went straight under the wheels of the overnight coach from Aberdeen.
RICHARD
Hello World
I’ve always been painfully shy. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the one hiding in the corner, keeping as low a profile as possible, and avoiding interaction with others.
It had to stop.
I got counselling – in itself a huge leap forward – and they gave me suggestions of ways to break out of my shell.
The internet was the perfect way to keep people at a distance, whilst stepping out of my comfort zone.
Try writing stories for a podcast, they said.
So, I did.
And here I am.
At long last, it’s my turn to shine!
LIZZIE
At the crack of dawn, the rats would come out to play.
He knew they would try to shine.
But he wouldn’t let them. Oh, no.
At the crack of dawn, the rats would start to talk.
He knew they’d give him up.
But he wouldn’t let them. Oh, no.
There was only one way to stop this madness.
He drove to them.
At the crack of dawn, he knocked on their door.
They opened, saw him and tried to run.
It was messy and they never got to shine.
He almost felt for them, at the crack of dawn.
SERENDIPIDY
Every morning, at the crack of dawn, the rats return to their lair.
The village breathes a collective sigh of relief, and once the sun is high in the sky, life can resume as normal.
Doors and shutters are checked, freshly-gnawed holes are filled, and bait and traps set, only then can we attend to the preparing and cooking of the meat snared overnight.
Once we have eaten, we prepare once more, for the darkness and horror of the night.
By day, we may feast on the rats, but when the night comes, they seek to feast on us.
TOM
Even in the quietest moments
Maurice surveyed the horizon, a mere sliver of light over the waves of black sand. He was not the one to be up at the crack of dawn. He was the night hawk, the man with the 10,000-yard stare. When he saw her face in the starlight, he could not bare to wake Amanda. It was the first time in weeks he noted the grief had for a moment crept away into the blackness about them. The trouble with the blackness is it was just as likely to creep back at you. What was creeping towards them were the rats.
NORVAL JOE
A kindly old woman smiled at them from behind the counter inside the store. She leaned forward to look out the window. “How’d you three get here?”
Sabrina picked up a shiny packet of powdered donuts. “We’ve been walking since the crack of dawn. Will this road take us to Eureka?”
She nodded. “Ferndale, Fortuna, then on to Eureka.”
Billbert paid for their donuts and milk. He headed for the door and stopped. A jeep pulled into the parking lot with three familiar passengers.
“Rats!” Billbert said. “In reviewal of our situation, is there a back door we can use?”
PLANET Z
Drusilla is painfully shy.
Sits in the back of the classroom.
Never raises her hand.
Wets herself when she’s called on anyway.
And if she answers, she answers in a whisper.
Changes in a bathroom stall for gym.
And runs to the bathroom to change back.
Nobody invites her to their parties.
Which is fine by her.
She likes to keep to herself.
And her pet rats.
Well, she calls them her pet rats.
But they’re just ordinary rats in the house.
Running around the cellar.
She puts out cheese for them.
They eat, and run back into the shadows.
George’s mirrors
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When bad things happened, he always blamed others.
“Maybe you should look in the mirror, George?” said the captain.
So, George did. And he blamed the mirror.
From that day on, George smashed every mirror he saw.
“Damn you all!” he’d shout, whacking the mirror with the butt of his cutlass until it was nothing but tiny shards of broken glass.
He kept them in a bag on his belt, and he’d get angry and stuff it in people’s mouths.
“CHEW IT!” he’d shout.
And he’d smash more mirrors.
George’s paradox
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was constantly wrecking his ship, and it spent a lot of time being repaired.
Eventually, every part of the ship needed to be replaced at least once.
“So, if every part of the ship has been replaced, is this still the same ship?” asked George.
Some of the crew said yes, some said no, and some just stared back, confused.
Meanwhile, back at the dock, Captain Theseus stood before a skeletonized ship, ranting and raving.
“Damn that George!” Theseus yelled. “He stripped my ship for spare parts again!”
George is worse than Hitler
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
But at least he wasn’t always pointing at people and shouting “YOU’RE WORSE THAN HITLER!” like Old Man Johnson was.
“That’s really annoying,” said George. “isn’t there something useful you can do?”
One morning, they found Old Man Johnson in his bunk, dead.
Nobody went to his funeral, and there wasn’t even an obituary in the paper.
But everyone assumed that his last words were “YOU’RE WORSE THAN HITLER!”
Well, maybe not shouted, Probably wheezed, because George’s hands were on the guy’s throat, choking the life out of him.
George’s dairy
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The stress of being a pirate caused him indigestion and ulcers.
So, he drank a lot of milk and ate smooth foods like yogurt.
It’s not easy to get those things fresh out at sea, so he filled the cargo hold with cows and a fully-operational dairy.
The crew saw the cows and thought “steak”, but George convinced them otherwise with some fine artisanal cheeses.
“Why don’t you just become a farmer?” asked the captain.
George thought for a moment, shrugged, and went below decks for the morning milking.
George eats the crew
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When supplies ran low on the ship, there were only two options: rationing and finding another ship to attack and rob.
Well, okay… they could have headed back to port for more supplies, but where’s the fun in that?
And there are only so many crewmates to eat.
The captain called for the crew to assemble on the deck.
Only George showed up.
“Did we eat everyone else?” asked the captain.
“I guess so, captain,” said George.
They headed back to port for more supplies.
And, of course, recruits.
George never minds the weather
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When he was out at sea, he wouldn’t bother with a spyglass or a barometer or any of the traditional weather forecasting tools.
He’d pull out his cell phone and check the weather application on it.
Usually, he couldn’t get a signal, and he could only tell if it was raining by whether the cell phone was wet.
However, on the rare times he got a signal, he’d still get the forecast wrong.
Because he’d disabled the GPS locator, and would get the forecast from their home port’s location.