For the love of the Sea

The ocean is my one love. Ever since I was a child every moment I could spend on the ocean was heaven on earth. It didn't matter if it was rain or shine. I loved the ocean all the time. I grew up on a small island in the southeast asian chain of islands. Growing up by the sea I think maybe had something to do with it. I could go there anytime I wanted and I did. I would watch with eager eyes when storms rolled in watching how it affected the ocean. So I personally find it ironic that a storm is what did me in.

When I was a teenager I was given a small sailboat by my entire community. They all saw my love for the sea and wanted to encourage it. My mother was scared for me of course but she knew she couldn't stop me. My very first trip out I got myself lost for two days. When I returned home everyone fussed and fretted but still they knew they couldn't stop me. So instead they decided to teach me. I learned how to navigate by day and night through storms and fog. They taught me how to control myself in the fast currents and how to move myself when the sea went dead.

It didn't take long before I was taking full day trips out on the sea. Leaving with the morning sun and coming in under the moon. Often I would come back with fish so my mother gave up trying to fight me about it. My parents died shortly after my twentieth birthday during a vicious monsoon. I grieved them for a full week before laying them to rest. After that I managed to gain control of a full size boat and with no one holding me to my home anymore I finally gave myself to the sea.

With my reputation it didn't take long for me to muster a crew of young men like myself. Our homes had been good to us but now it was time to strike out on our own. It didn't take very long for us to decide to become both explorers and pirates. It kept us on the sea most of the time and it gave us funds to keep on the sea. Many merchant ships fell to our hands and many new islands not on our maps were soon discovered. None of that mattered to us though. As long as we could stay on the sea that was all that mattered.

One calm night on the sea was all it took for our hopes and dreams to be dashed. We were riding along a current and were making good time due to a tailwind. We had just plundered a ship of a couple of tons of gold and were heading to a small harbour town to unload it.

When we had plundered the ship one of the merchants begged and pleaded with me, "Please don't take this gold. It's cursed! If it leaves this boat bad fortune will befall all who took it. The sea will take their lives without mercy. I beg of you! Take whatever else you want but not the gold."

Our funds had started to run dry recently so I chose to ignore him, "You are a fool for believing such things. The sea is always merciful to those who know her. And no one loves her like I do so be gone or I'll send you to meet her now." The man refused and so I was forced to separate his head from his body and toss him overboard. When we brought the crates of gold onboard our ship I took a brief moment to look at them. They were coins with a strange marking on them of a pentagram with an eye in the middle of it. I put away the coins feeling a sense of uneasy about them and we set sail.

Now that we were on our way I thought of the man's words and devotion to them. But I knew the sea would never shun me so I pushed it out of my mind. The sea was being good to us and we were drinking and celebrating. Suddenly a call came down from the crows nest "Captain there's a storm coming from the east. Looks like a squall. What should we do?"

I groan, putting down my bottle of rum, "Dammit! Of course there is. Everyone to stations! It would be a real shame to lose everything after tonight's haul." With that my men took off across the ship getting everything together for us to weather the storm. As I watched it approaching I began to feel uneasy for it didn't seem to be a normal storm. It only took thirty minutes for the storm to reach us and soon we were in the thick of it. The sea was pushing, swelling, and screaming all around us. As I man the wheel even in the midst of it my eyes are wide with wonder but also concern. My love for the sea never once dwindled in me though for I knew she would protect me.

I looked down to the cargo hold of the ship seeing a bright glow coming from where the gold had been stored. One of my crewmen cried out, "Captain, that merchant wasn't lying, the gold is cursed! What do we do?"

I looked around watching the storm now stopped above us despite there still being a strong wind. This was no natural storm and it was interfering with my beautiful sea. "Toss it all out! As fast as you can! Get it all overboard." The men scrambled, grabbing and chucking the gold overboard but it was too little too late. A monstrous wave rose before us and then crashed over the ship crushing it like nothing more than tinderwood.

When I woke up, the day had come brilliant and burning. I was laid across a plank floating on the ocean. None of my crew were anywhere to be seen, more than likely none of them survived. As I floated I could feel the current moving under me and so I adjusted my body to flow with it. Those cursed coins may have destroyed my ship but I still had the ocean. She would carry me to land and I could get a new ship and be back with my love. Already my throat was parched but I had nothing to drink. Not even my rum. I floated through the day and into the night with no land in sight.

At the darkest hours of the night I began to hear wailing all around me. The sounds of lost sailors whose life had been taken by the sea. They screamed and cried of what a foul mistress she was but I paid them no heed. Soon I could see them all around me, my own men who asked me, "Why Captain why? Why did we take those coins? The sea has swallowed us whole for our foolishness." I waved them away. I knew what I had done to these men but I would not hear their words anymore. But still they persisted. They anguished about the bitter cold and the darkness they were engulfed in. How I had fed them to the sea to fulfill my selfish desires.

When day finally broke the spirits left me. For this I was relieved. They had been getting to me with their cries. That my love for the sea was what drove them here to die. That I had accepted to take the cursed coins just so that I could continue to fund my life with the sea. To have the money to share myself with my love. My thirst was becoming unbearable as the day passed. The blazing heat against the calm blue beneath me scorched my skin. When the sun finally fell I cried out in sweet relief only to have it replaced by the wailing of my men once again.

They hovered and spun around me. They clawed and tugged on me trying to pull me down, "Join us Captain! Join us in the ocean you love so much. Be one with her at last. You gave us to her but none of us love her like you. Let yourself fall and join her." I buried my head against my arms, I tried to cover my ears from their calls, and I screamed for them to leave me.

"I know what I have done! But please don't take me with you. I don't want to join her yet. I wish to stay above and admire her from my ship. Share my love with her from there." I cried, wailed, and screamed back at the spirits.

Suddenly I realized they were no longer talking to me. I felt a pair of cold hands wrap around my chest and a woman's voice whisper softly into my ear, "Join me. You say you love me and yet you cling to your wood to stay afloat. Join me and show me your adoration and love."

My whole body felt chill and stiff. I could fight it no longer. I let go of the plank and fell into the abyss. As I fell a woman clad in shimmers of blue, grey, and black took me into her arms. She held me to her bosom and whispered once again, "Join me and be mine forever."

I looked up into her eyes the color of a pale blue on a calm day and my heart relaxed. I accepted my fate and when I spoke the water, did not stop my words, "Hello my love. I've come home to you."

Her smile sweet and gentle turned to a grin filled with many razor sharp teeth. Her eyes turned black as the sea during a monsoon, "Welcome home." She swallowed me whole and dragged me to the inky black. It was only then that I realized as all light faded that while I loved the sea she did not love me.

I hope you enjoyed this tale of the sea. If you did then please subscribe, leave a like, and if you want feel free to leave a tip.