Apr

3

The Vicious Pirates

April 3, 2007 | Leave a Comment

[-short short fiction-]

by Indie

pirates

© 2004 – 2007 inde all rights reserved

The vicious pirates Peg Head Jones and his offspring Baby Face Barnacle were terrors from Costa Rica to the Caribbee and as far north as Cincinnati. In ’98 they jumped the early-morning line at an inland Toys R’ Us, making off with a swag of first edition Barbie dolls just ready to hit the shelves, worth more by this time than the combined income of the top ten supermodels. Their daring escape down the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi on a leaky raft dazzled the media, and their subsequent daylight disappearance into the Gulf was legend. Now they roamed the rain forest path in search of their stash, ears attuned to the myriad patterns of sound indigenous to South Sea islands: the tinkling waterfall, the exotic song of unseen birds, the hushed murmur of natives far off in the distance.

“Matey, be ya sure this were the spot?” Baby Face Barnacle looked up at the taller pirate.

“I’d swear on a keg o’ potato rum!” Peg Head swaggered, rubbing the back of his head with a piece of sandpaper. “I lefts a sign by th’ tree what says ‘Schefflera actinophylla’ and thar it be.” He pointed to the inconspicuous, white marker in front of the tropical trunk.

“But we dug an’ dug’ an’ nuthin’ but a duster it were. I says we’s goin’ ’round in circles. I got more deja vooze than a skippin’ gramophone.” Baby Face shook his head, more puzzled than a parrot in Pittsburg.

“Har, me lad! Somethin’ be wrong, but I’ll be a pied Peter Pan if I kin get me ‘ook in it,” Peg Head answered, and glanced about from side to side, hoping to catch sight of something definitive.

“Ay, we be wanderin’ for hours and ain’t got nowheres. I says we–” The sound of footfalls on the path interrupted Baby Face. He looked up suddenly. “Argh! It be that crazed dog of an islander again. Let’s you an’ me scar him off!”

Baby Face Barnacle put on his mean look and Peg Head Jones snarled, but the approaching native seemed unconcerned. “Look here,” he said, “you two are beginning to frighten the guests. I’ve told you already, no digging, and now you’re making faces at everyone. This is your last warning. Remember that you’re in a conservatory!”

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Inde, © 2005 – 2007 all rights reserved

Please see Inde’s other contributions to The PCQ: Hacker Baby, The Great War of 2015

Inde’s blog, The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy, is an experiment in creativity with daily posts of an original one-minute short story inspired by a found photo. All stories are fictional. The idea is based on the Indeterminacy recordings by John Cage, pairing one-minute short stories with random sounds. His daily stories can be found at: indeterminancy.blogspot.com

about the writer:
Inde is an American – originally from Cincinnati, Ohio – living in Europe since the 80′s. He enjoys avant garde, dadaistic, and surrealistic art, literature and music. He has a special love for comedy. Inde holds a masters in psychology and is employed as knowledge engineer, designing natural language dialogue systems. He’s lucky enough to be married to a wonderful muse and has a son 10 years of age.

Published by the permission of the author in the October 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: collections

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and, just for fun:

talk like a pirate day
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also posted in: Collaboration , Crackles! , Creative Cross-pollination , Fiction , The Original PCQ, 05-06 , Writing


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