Over The Seven Seas

The melody of my memory

I was fuming, I couldn't stand the kid anymore, not even a minute longer, I wanted him off my ship so much I was this close to throwing him overboard:

-Continue Nathan, we do not have all day....

-Right on point captain!

Jhonatan was watching with angering calmness as Nathan was bringing on deck a huge bag with cuffs for legs and hands. I was starting to regret letting them do as they please, I mean I certainly still needed Jhonatan to guide the ship, I couldn't let him die, but there was nothing I could do, not now, my position and pride as a pirate was all I had left, I couldn't show mercy to the weak, that was not profitable for my status.

-Come here, boy, Nathan shouted from across the deck to the place were Jhonatan was patiently waiting, let's have some fun now, shall we?

-If this is your kind of entertaining, I thought you had better taste, but of course we shall proceed!

He was soooo close to Nathan tearing him to shreds, I was sure now, more than ever, that Jhonatan was dying today.

The wind was starting to cool the air, the sun was no longer up in the sky and a pale almost translucent moon was appearing on the horizon, the last hours of a deceased soul that lived in a breathing body, it was calm, serene, no clouds to shadow his past, and now none to cover his future, Jhonatan came on this ship and made everything turn upside down, and now I was simply watching him choose his death for a stupid bet, something wasn't coming together ?

-Now, Nathan said as he closed the last cuff on Jhonatan's hand, prince, he said in a mocking tone, proceed to the sugar room.

The sugar room was were we kept the snakes used to torture prisoners, we named it like that after a princess from another pirate ship was kept there for 3 hours before she chose to talk and all she said was a bloodcurdling scream for her lover whom she pet-named sugar.

-You will be staying there for exactly 30 minutes, Nathan continued to explain, I will bond you to the wall inside through an opening in the ceiling, you will be suspended above the deathly poisonous snakes at a small enough distance so that they can reach you, your hands are tied so you can not climb on the cuffs to get further from the snakes, if you make it out, I will have to accept you as one of my crew, if not, God help you foolish prince.

If you have ever been hunting in the woods you might have witnessed  the frightened look in the prey's eyes right before they meet their death, it scares them even though they have no idea or way of rationalizing, they are scared more than out of instinct, its called by psychologists the death generalization, or as an american author explained:"we all see death through the same perspective, and it scares us all, human or animal". As a conclusion I was exepcting to see it in his eyes, not necesarily fear, but a bit of worry, any way of showing he understands the high posibility of him dying, any trick he had before was nothing now, but I didn't see anything, when I looked into his eyes, all I could read from them was passion, he was waiting, preparing himself for greatness, he was looking at us with that kind of vitality I thought no one had on this earth, not anymore. He was more alive than I have ever been.

-Now, Nathan said as he opened the secret door from the deck to the sugar room, you're going down boy.

-Aye, Jhonatan said as he fell three feet down to the hook that kept him now just above the snake's hole, they started moving, not yet understanding or observing his presence, one minute, two, three, I was terrified, I have never waited for death, never knew when it was coming, that made killing easier, I never attacked with the wish to kill, it just happened sometimes to the weaker ones, and I considered it natural selection, but now it wasn't that easy, I was now faced with the fact that I have drained the life from so many before just like the clock and waiting drained the life from Jhonatan's soul and mind, even thought he wasn't showing it, I knew, I was killing him, and this feeling, of murdering, of ending a life, left itself imprinted in my soul.