Black Pearls

Thirteen years as Captain, and one hundred years of service down below.

When did I make that bargain, how many years do I have left at the tiller?

The deal was imperfect, and I've forgotten what I agreed.

Even while I get to play Captain Jack Sparrow, I still must pay my keep.

Fate will not wait until my true toil begins.

These tears silently spilling down my face are all black pearls.

Hard earned through experience, life, pain, and love.

Hard birthed, tearing me wider with the loss of every one.

In front of me grows a pile of pearls, nacre glistening black, beautiful, and tragic.

How many have I earned, how many will I get to keep?

A wave crashes the stern, and the black pearls spill...

Off the deck, little parts of me, falling into the storm swirled depths.

Lost again.

Spark by Beth Scolfield

Remember Me?

Remember me? Robin Hood appears over my shoulder.

Remember me? I look down at my feet, and see his boots next to mine in the forget-me-nots.

Remember me? It's been so long, I don't know if I remember.

Remember me? I try hard to look at his face this time. I see only his hat. I'm face blind.

Remember me? I'm at a festival, and he tells me to try the oysters.

Remember me? We're dancing in a ballroom, and his hands convey his anxiety even if I can't see his face.

Remember me? Standing at the foot of a dying woman's bed, I'm scared but not alone.

Remember me? I'm holding my dog, she snaps at his face.

Remember me? I'm sorry, I can't lose them too.

Remember me? I wish I could remember more.

Remember me? Yes. 

Remember me? Every day, like a dream forgotten on waking, a part of me is missing. It's in Robin Hood's pocket.

Spark by Eyglo

I Ran

I ran, refusing to look back, until I reached the safety of the junked wreck up the dirt road. That rusty hulk, leaning into the wind on perished rubber, watching the world go by, was surrounded by mounds of flowers. Forget-me-nots. I hadn't seen those prolific tiny blue blossoms in so long.

When I finally scrabbled the car door open, its hinges screamed in protesting alarm at being disturbed after all the decades it huddled along the edge of the track. I jumped at the sound, fearful of giving some indication that I had fled.

My bare feet trod mounds of brush, the crunching underneath likely the skeletons of long dead possums who had made this decaying mess their sanctuary.

I huddled, dripping, on strips of shredded seat cover and a rusty eruption of springs, taking a first hesitant look through the filthy windows streaming rivulets through the grime.

Pressing my scratched and bleeding palms to the glass, I saw, finally, where I had been kept all these years, for the very first time.

Image by Bryan DeLae