Category: Talk Like A Pirate Day

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
One day, while leaning on his mop and looking out over the ocean of clouds, there was a flash of light.
Standing there was George, a little bit older, fancy clothes, nicely trimmed beard, and a captain’s hat.
In his hands was a silver box with lights and buttons.
“Things will get better,” said the older George.
The younger George was surprised, stumbling and dropping his mop, and he knocked the older George over the railing.
George picked up the box, shrugged, and went back to watching the clouds.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When a man with a tambourine came aboard on a jingle jangle morning, George asked him to play a song.
The tambourine man smiled, and took George on a trip with his magic swirling ship.
Stripping George of his senses, hands too numb to hold the ropes.
Sailing across the sky, the sun, leaving a trail of smoke rings.
They danced beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free.
George came to his senses on a beach.
“Hello?” shouted George, but there was no answer but the wind.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When other pirates asked him to pass the salt, George wouldn’t pass them the salt.
“Didn’t you get one of those plastic dinnerware packets with salt and pepper?” asked George.
The other pirate would say something like “I always throw those out” or “I eat with my hands” or something like that.
So, George would end up having to pass the salt.
It wasn’t Sodium Chloride, though.
It was… well, George couldn’t remember what the Apothecary had called it.
But the coroner would probably figure out what it was.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
But he was a genius compared to the dimwits at the drive-through.
George pulled the ship up to the speaker, lowering sails and dropping anchor.
He assumed that the noise was someone trying to say “Can I take your order?”
George read the list he’d gotten from his crewmates, but the speaker kept interrupting him.
“Can’t I just pull up and give you this list?”
More static barely resembling human speech.
George pulled up anyway, and handed over the list.
“Next time, we order Uber Eats,” said the captain.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
You’re supposed to treat your Jolly Roger flag with utmost care, but George had a bad habit of leaving it out in a storm, and it would end up soaked and ragged.
Or he’d wash it with the reds, and it would come out with a pink skull and crossbones instead of white.
So he’d put in a cup of bleach, and out would come a solid white flag.
George sold it to the French Navy.
And with the money he got for it, bought a new Jolly Roger.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was fascinated with the ship in a bottle in the captain’s cabin.
The bottle was one of many that the captain had consumed since George had joined the crew.
The boat, the captain had made it himself, painstakingly fitting and gluing each piece together.
In spite of his shaky hands, the result of drinking so much. Because of George.
“Do you think I could get a job on that boat?” whispered George. “Would you write me a letter of recommendation?”
The captain pulled out another bottle and drank.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Above his bunk, he’d carved BE A BETTER PIRATE.
So it would be the first thing he’d see in the morning, and the last thing he saw at night.
He’d wake up and read that note and think “Yes, I can be a better pirate!”
And then go through his day, proving himself wrong with every screwup, mistake, and accident.
When the day was blessedly over, George would drag his battered and bruised body back into his bunk.
Seeing the note, smirking and muttering “Yeah, right!”
And falling asleep.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The captain demoted George down to work in the galley.
George saw this as an opportunity to improve the ship’s food.
He refurbished the galley with new equipment, and he filled the shelves with cookbooks and spices.
The cheap tinware of old wouldn’t be good enough for George… he filled the cupboard with the finest dinnerware and placesettings.
When all was ready, he showed it to the captain.
“There’s no room for any food, you idiot,” the captain said.
George pawned everything to buy crates of hardtack and jerky.

“George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.”
The old man sat on the steps of the library, muttering these eleven words over and over.
He didn’t take any notice of the rain or the passers-by.
Saying those words in an endless loop.
Like some mantra, chanted by a guru on the bank of a mystic river to appease the gods.
And then he stopped.
Standing up slowly, shaky, bending over… falling down the steps.
Landing at the bottom, lying still, face to the heavens.
Were those tears, or was it just the rain on his face.