Night of the Whispering Wind - 1/26

Love is like a Space Opera: Endless, Exciting, and full of gas.

Night of the Whispering Wind

          I have never been good at anything. In fact, I would argue that "good" is a word that never quite managed to locate me on any of star charts. At fifteen, I discovered that my fingers were best suited for hitting the "skip intro" button than most everything. By sixteen, I attempted to bake a sourdough loaf, which my family's dog politely declined to eat . By seventeen I tried to learn Spanish, only to discover that "Hola!" and "Adi!" were the only two words I could actually remember, and even those were used interchangeably. So, when I stumbled onto the idea of becoming a pirate--because apparently, nothing says "I'm a man of action" like a slightly tattered eye patch.

          Enter Barb Dwyer. She was the kind of girl who could make a grown man's heart start a drum solo without a conductor. She wore her hair on a braid, and her smile was so bright it could blind a space-gull from ten parsecs away. I first saw her on Dockside 12, where she was arguing with a street vendor over the price of a "genuine" star foam crystal. I watched as she knocked back a mug of spiced rum, then turned her golden eyes toward me and asked, "Are you looking for work, or just staring at my shoes?" I answered, "Both, actually," because by then I had already decided that staring was the more respectable part of my existence.

          The problem? Barb's heart was already locked onto Jim Nasium, the most feared pirate in the semi-renowned sector known colloquially as Bee-In-Go. (Yes, the locals actually pronounce it "Bee-In-Go," but they write it the same way as a badly designed tech startup.) Jim was the kind of pirate whose name alone made the stars tremble. He sported a scar that ran from his left ear to his right knee. He owned the sleekest ship in the sector, the Ravenous Ruckus, and his crew was a collection of half-mutated parrots, a former tax auditor who had "gone rogue."

          When Barb mentioned Jim's name in the same breath as mine, my stomach performed a perfect rendition of The Who's "My Generation," an impressive feat for a man whose digestive system generally preferred to stay out of the spotlight. That's when I decided that I would do something so daring, so absurd, that even the universe would have to grant me a tiny, sarcastic nod.

          "I'm going to steal a treasure from Jim Nasium," I announced to the empty alley behind the tavern, a declaration that was botthe culmination of all my low--self esteem and the first real plan I'd ever made that didn't involve microwaving leftovers. I didn't have a ship, a crew, or even a coherent map of where Jim's treasure might be hidden. What I did have, however, was a halfbaked notion that the kind of treasure that could get Jim's attention wasn't gold or jewels but "the kind that won't forgive, won't forget;" a cursed ledger containing all the debts Jim owed to the shadowy financiers of the overworld. If I could steal that, I could expose Jim's financial sins, cripple his reputation, and--most importantly--show Barb that I wasn't just another planet-lubber with a penchant for karaoke.

          First, I needed a ship. I walked up to the dock manager, a corpulent man named Salty McKrakers and offered him my "expertise" in piracy. He looked at me like I'd just suggested we replace his beloved star-faring fleet with a fleet of tricycles. After a few minutes of negotiating (which mainly involved me crying on his narrow shoulder and then promising to pay him in future "pirate favors"), Salty begrudgingly let me take the Sea-Sick Seahorse, a sloop that had seen more floundering than flying and was so rusted that its hull sounded like a chorus of metallic crickets whenever it went faster than slow. I christened it "The Misfortune Machine," because why not embrace the inevitable theme of my life?

          Recruiting a crew was even harder. I posted flyers on the town's notice board that read: "Wanted: Pirates. No experience necessary. You could die." To my surprise, three actual individuals responded. There was Crabby, a retired shoemaker who claimed he could "shoe" a ship's hull for free (a skill that turned out to be merely polishing the deck with old shoe polish); Marlowe, a poet who wrote haiku about the stars; and Octavio, the disgruntled octopus who apparently had once been fired for "creative differences." He slithered onto the deck, wrapping his tentacles around my waist, and declared, "I shall be your first mate, though I shall also write a tragic ballad about your downfall. It will be... theatrical." I had no choice but to accept his terms; a poetic octopus was the sort of thing that would make any respectable pirate captain shiver.

          Our plan was simple on paper, as all terrible plans are. We would infiltrate Jim's fortress, an absurdly lavish compound perched precariously circling a Black Hole that overlooked the Sun of Unending Regret. We would infiltrate during the annual "Night of the Whispering Wind," when the cook made the special. We would use a combination of my "expert skills," mostly consisting of a rusty cutlass, an ill-timed squeak, Crabby's questionable shoemaking, Marlowe's lyrical distractions, and Octavio's eight-armed efficiency to locate the ledger and slip it into my satchel. Then, we would flee on the Misfortune Machine, leaving Jim's reputation in ruins and Barb with the realization that I could indeed stand with the most notorious pirate in Bee-In-Go.

          The night of the operation arrived, and the many moons were indifferent eyes watching us from above. We approached the cliff on foot, because the Misfortune Machine had been deemed too conspicuous after it rolled into a ditch after landing and refused to move. As we crept toward the manor's grand entrance, Marlowe began reciting a limerick about the moon's love for cheese, which, miraculously, caught the attention of a sentry and caused him to burst into uncontrollable laughter. I seized the moment, slipped past the doorway, and entered the hall, my heart pounding louder than a drumline at a pirate parade.

          Inside was a labyrinth of gold-lined corridors, portrait after portrait of Jim looking more menacing each time you passed, and a faint, metallic scent that hinted at the presence of--yes--the cursed ledger. The ledger was said to be locked inside a vault forged from the bones of a leviathan, guarded not only by physical barriers but also by a magical curse that would trap the soul of any thief forever.

          I tried to open the vault with the key I'd stolen from a local tavern owner, a rusty, ornamental key that was meant for a barrel of pickles. The key turned, but the vault lid didn't budge. That's when Octavio, having slithered in through a crack in the wall, extended a tentacle and whispered, "Use the poetry, my captain." I didn't understand how a poem could unlock a leviathan's bones, but I was desperate enough to try. I took a breath and recited the worst pirate poem I could muster, which went something like:

Yo ho, yo ho, space is a mess,
I'm here to steal, I must confess.
If you don't let me take the gold,
I'll sing a song that's terribly old."

          The vault shuddered. A deep, resonant groan emanated from the walls, and a hidden compartment opened, revealing a small, leatherbound book that hummed with a faint, eldritch glow. It was the ledger--every debt Jim owed, every promise he'd broken, every soul he'd consigned to the abyss for a barrel of rum. I snatched it, feeling the weight of a thousand lives press against my chest.

          Just as I turned to flee, the walls of the manor began to shift. A voice boomed, "Who dares disturb my treasures?" It was Jim Nasium himself, appearing in a swirl of smoke and an army of feral parrots that squawked with the ferocity of an angry choir. He was taller than I remembered, his scar now fully exposed like a jagged stripe of terror on his face. "You think you can steal from me?" he snarled. "You will pay with your life!"

          At that moment, Barb appeared at the balcony above, her eyes widening at the sight of her beloved nemesis confronting a lanky, terrified man who bore a look of pure panic. She shouted, "Jim! Stop! He's just a fool!"

          I pulled out the ledger and held it aloft, shouting, "Look, Jim! Your debts! Your secrets! They're all here!" The clamor of the pirate's own reputation turned against him. The parrots, hearing the word "debt," squawked in confusion, and the magical curse that protected the vault had a side effect, any who attempted to claim the ledger without paying a price would be instantly haunted by the whispers of the countless souls trapped within.

          Jim's eyes flickered for a heartbeat. "Give it back, you... you...," Jim sputtered, his voice cracking under the weight of his own shame. "I'm the greatest pirate! I... I can't lose!" He lunged forward, but before he could reach me, Octavio's eight arms wrapped around his legs, pulling him into a knot of tentacles that caused the whole manor to sway like a ship in a storm. Meanwhile, Crabby, wielding a shoe polish-slicked cutlass, began to "shoe" the floor--actually just slipping, but somehow it sent the sentries stumbling into each other. Marlowe shouted a sonnet about Jim's inevitable downfall, each line echoing off the stone walls and amplifying the magical curse until it burst like a fireworks display of ghostly sighs.

          Amid the chaos, Barb, who had clearly decided that both the pirate romance and the treasure hunt were equally absurd, swooped down the balcony, grabbed my hand, and shouted, "You love-sick idiot! Let's get out of here!" Together we scrambled down the cliff, dragging the ledger with us. The Misfortune Machine, miraculously repaired by Crabby's sudden revelation that shoe polish could act as a temporary rust inhibitor, roared to life just as we reached the hatch. We sprinted aboard and set a course for the nearest star port, the ledger clutched like a holy grail, the sound of Jim's curses fading behind us.

          We didn't get to the harbor without incident. Jim, still tangled in Octavio's limbs, launched a cannonball that missed the Misfortune Machine by a league and was sucked into the Black Hole. The crew cheered, not because we had successfully stolen a treasure from the most feared pirate, but because we had finally done something positive.

          In the days that followed, the ledger's contents exploded across Bee-In-Go like a scandal in a gossip column. Jim Nasium's empire crumbled; his creditors demanded repayment, his crew mutinied, and the only thing left of his legend was a cautionary tale told by shanty singers to warn the young and reckless.

          Barb, watching all of this unfold from her modest cabin, her hair still braided, her smile still brighter than an exploding star, turned to me and said, "You may not be a real pirate, Justin, but you're the only one who ever tried." In her eyes, I saw not just admiration but something that felt like... approval.

          The moral of my tale: If you've never had luck, if you've been a perpetual failure since fifteen, and if you find yourself in love with a girl whose heart belongs to the sector's most terrifying pirate, remember that the universe loves a good joke.

Word Count: 1,919
Prompt: BlackAdder's Cantina Space Opera Contest