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Roger

The story of an unlikely pair

By Hannah BPublished about a year ago Updated 3 months ago 7 min read
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Roger
Photo by Ian Keefe on Unsplash

Blaine wasn’t quite sure how to spend time on a stolen yacht run ashore on a random uninhabited island without a charged cell phone; he had planned to scroll through dating apps where his biographies said things like, “I’m rich, what else matters?” and most of his profile pictures had at least two other blonde white men with sweaters tied around their shoulders in them so as to potentially attract more swipes intended for his much more attractive friends. However, given that his phone died mere minutes after arriving on the island, Blaine had been rummaging through the pristine yacht cabin in search of another method to calming his nerves before the big meeting with Seb. The “big meeting” of course, was what Blaine arbitrarily decided was going to be a conversation about him becoming business partners so that Blaine could enjoy the spoils of white collar crime. In reality, Seb planned to take the yacht as a nice freebie and hit Blaine with a “new phone, sorry... who’s this?” the next time that Blaine contacted him, but of course, he didn’t expect Blaine to carry out the theft without dangling a little fake incentive over him.

The stolen yacht that Blaine was rummaging through belonged to his sister, Laura, who had not wanted to enter into a sale agreement with Seb, and so Seb vicariously took matters into Laura’s try-hard younger brother’s hands. Laura was due to sell the yacht the following week to pay for... her wife’s cancer treatments. Yes, you read that right. Blaine, like human garbage juice in hot July, stole a yacht from his hard working sister, leaving her without money to pay for cancer treatment for the love of her life. Blaine had convinced himself that this incredible deed would earn him the trust and respect of Seb and his associates, and hopefully a cut of the cash soon to follow Seb’s acquisition of this yacht. Oh but surely, you must be thinking to yourself, Seb and associates must need the yacht for their own good reason? Well, if you think that trading the yacht to a drug cartel leader is a good reason for depriving someone of life saving cancer treatment, I won’t judge. I just happen to know what happens to Carol at the end. You feel your feelings, monster. I mean, reader.

Blaine made the decision to take the edge off with a little 26 ounce sample of the whiskey he had found in the cabin liquor cabinet: now I use the word “sample” here because sarcasm is hilarious, but also because one usually enjoys a sample quickly and in one bite or swallow. Blaine removed the empty bottle from his lips and stumbled to the deck for some fresh air, hastily flinging himself off of the stern to the dampened sandy shore. Not two seconds after his knock-off Gucci loafers touched sand, a rather aggressive wave drowned them completely, lapping at the ankles of his suit pants. A sound that can only be described as a “snotty whine” echoed through the bay as Blaine attempted to race the next wave to dry land, but any semblance of coordination was somewhere at the bottom of a bottle back on the yacht, and Blaine came crashing into the water. Blaine felt the last hope of saving his Armani suit pull away from him with the waves: rushing off of the sand and back to the sea. He scanned the waters to the horizon, running his hand through his extremely product-laden blonde hair, but still, no one was coming. He wondered how many more hours he would have to wait for a sign of life. It had been 15 minutes since his phone had died.

Blaine steadied himself and slowly stood up facing the island when about eight feet in front of him in the dead centre of the beach appeared a very large coconut crab. Normally one might think the sight of one of the largest crabs in the world with a pinch that can be equated to the bite strength of an adult lion might be a bit on the frightening side, but the crab had a sort of magnetism to him. He just... looked nice. The crab raised one of his great claws in the air, then lowered it, raised it again, lowered it, raised it again... was the crab waving at Blaine?

“Good afternoon, good sir!” The crab bellowed over the crashing waves. Blaine’s eyes widened. He stomped his way to shore and approached the crab with the confidence only possessed by one who steals yachts and raids the liquor cabinet thereafter.

“Did you just speak to me?” Blaine slurred.

The crab chuckled. “Yes of course I did. We don’t need to do the old cliche “but how can you talk? You’re an animal! I must be going crazy! This must be a dream!” bit though, do we? I would much rather we didn’t. Instead, I would love to ask what on earth you’re doing here with that very large boat!”

Blaine shrugged. “Okay, Mr. Crab. Well I...”

“It’s Roger.” The crab interrupted with a short interjection.

“Huh?”

“My name is not Mr. Crab.” The crab said hurriedly. “It’s Roger. Roger Barclay.”

Blaine hung his head. “Oh. S-sorry, Roger. I’m Blaine.”

“Hello, Blaine!”

“Hey Roger. So I stole that boat to give it to my friend. Only, he isn’t really my friend I just really want him to be. And he didn’t show up here for me to give it to him. And I got really nervous to see Seb because he’s so cool! And he’s like tall and kind of scary, you know? You know what I mean?”

Roger stared back at Blaine, giving an affirmative nod. Blaine continued.

“So I looked for something to take my mind off of everything, and I drank a looooot of whiskey in the span of about forty-five seconds, and then I thought I should walk on the beach and try out my sea legs! I’ve never sailed until today, I refused to let my sister teach me how. Probably because I was just jealous. It’s her boat, actually. I took it right off the dock at the club with the key she gave me. Just walked right on and zoom! I was out of there, Rog.”

“Well, I say!” Roger offered. “You are in quite the predicament!”

“And now Carol will die. She’ll die because she was nice enough to give me a key to her really nice boat. And I have no phone and I’m on this island and maybe I’ll die too. But maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Wow you’re like, really comforting to talk to? Has anyone ever told you that? I don’t remember the last time I felt so... open.” Blaine paused to take a seat in the sand beside Roger. As he looked to the horizon, he started to cry.

“I’ve been a bad person, Roger. I am a bad person.”

Roger stroked Blaine’s crispy hair and spoke in a low, soothing tone.

“Oh dear, I suppose we were bound to run into the crying-to-a-stranger cliche if we didn’t go through with the other one, weren’t we? Ahh there there, lad. It’s alright. Blaine…. hey, come on Blaine… don’t cry...”

Blaine was sobbing now, his “snotty whine” had turned into more of a ferocious howl that he hurled across the bay at an alarmingly high volume.

Roger turned Blaine’s face toward him.

“Hey. Young man. What do you want to do?” He spoke softly.

Blaine sniffled between sobs, “wh-what?”

Roger slapped Blaine on the back with his enormous claw. “Come on boy, what do you want to do! Change your life! Change your situation! It’s not too late!”

Blaine spoke in an annoyed tone, “oh sure, Roger. Like it’s that easy. Like I’m just going to change my life right now because I met this incredibly kind and worldly crab and we’ll just sail off into the sunset and become platonic life partners who go around doing good for humans and animals alike so as to counter-balance all of my snotty, rich, privileged wrongs that would otherwise plague me for the rest of my life?”

. . .

Roger set the course for Thailand. As the island disappeared behind them, a boat of several blonde men with unseasonable tans and sweaters tied around their shoulders cruised past, dumbfounded to see Roger at the helm. He waved his large claw in the air, and chuckled at Blaine’s snores echoing throughout the cabin.

Oh, and Carol did get her treatment. Blaine’s sister had theft insurance and got more money back from her claim than she would have with the sale. Always insure your yachts for theft. That’s the real moral of the story.

Short Story
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About the Creator

Hannah B

Mom, self proclaimed funny girl, and publicly proclaimed "piece of work".

Lover and writer of fiction and non-fiction alike and hoping you enjoy my attempts at writing either.

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