Category: My stories

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Sure, it would have been easy for the captain to make George walk the plank and then replace him with a new recruit.
But the captain had invested a lot of time, money, and patience in George.
So, he hired Greybeard, the finest Professor of Pirateology, to teach George all he knew.
Two weeks later, Graybeard quit.
“The fool is utterly confused,” he said. “George needs the fundamentals, not advanced theory.”
The captain sighed, picked up a mop and bucket, and handed them to George.
“Go swab the deck.”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Instead of training and skill, he relied on faith.
And if offering his loyalty to one god would help, then offering his loyalty to more would help even more.
So, he worshiped all the gods. Every one of them.
And not just the sea gods. Every single god in human history.
From dawn until dusk, and into a good part of the night, George said prayers, made burnt offerings, and conducted strange rituals.
Then, one day, George gave up.
Laying on the deck, bare assed naked, worshiping the sun.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Out of habit, he bought a Powerball ticket, and he went out to sea.
That night, his number was drawn.
The store owner reviewed his security camera, and it revealed George as the winner.
Oblivious to this miracle, George went about his usual routine.
Whenever a ship with reporters approached, George’s shipmates subdued and gagged them.
And they’d steal their equipment and make ransom demands.
After a year at sea, George returned to port, but the winnings were forfeit.
He shrugged, released the hostages, and bought another Powerball ticket.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When Admiral Perry opened Japan to Western commerce, he also opened it to Western piracy.
George tried his hand at robbing Japanese ships.
But all he ever got were boatloads of fish, swords, and kimonos.
The kimonos were too small to fit George or his shipmates, not that pirates wear kimonos.
The swords looked cool, but they were horribly fragile.
George went through a crate of them in a week.
Which left George with a lot of dead fish.
George left them in the captain’s bunk as a prank.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d rather sit on the dock, feeding bits of fish to the cats who roamed there.
When he’d find a sick or hurt one, he’d care for it, and take it to the local veterinarian.
Some made it. Others didn’t.
He’d take a shovel to the woods, dig a hole by a his favorite tree, and carefully bury them.
“Their tenth lives are our memories of them,” he’d whisper, the closest thing to a prayer he knew.
Then he’d walk back to the dock, to the ship, and sleep.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate
“Here, drink this,” said the captain. “It’s a magical tea.”
So, George drank it. And vomited.
But he became strong and bold.
One day, George followed the captain to the Chinese herbalist shop… but the captain went to the woodmaker’s shop next door.
“Another bag of sawdust,” said the captain.
George was stunned. It was fake?
Dejected, he went back to the ship.
“Idiot keeps throwing up on the deck and not over the rail,” the captain said. “So messy.”
Then he went next door for the magic tea.