Oh Captain, My Captain

Screeching seagulls. Hard stone. The sting of salt. Pain pulls me up from the darkness of sleep, and the captain’s face slowly comes into focus.

"Thank God, you're finally awake."

"What the hell's…"

"Don't try to sit up. Just lay still."

I take stock of my surroundings. A rocky overhang is shading us from the sun, and we must be near the shore—I can hear the sound of waves.

The captain continues. "We need to be sure you still have your wits about you. Do you remember your name?"

"Anon. I'm a…sailor."

"And mine?"

"You're Mo-er, Captain Monika."

"And our ship?"

"The Doqui. It's some word from the Orient that means "the sound of a heartbeat", right?”

She smirks. "I'm impressed you actually remember that.”

“Well, it’s pretty unique.” I roll onto my side to get a better look at her, but something’s wrong—it’s like I’m looking at everything through a spyglass. I reach for my right eye and find it covered by tightly-wound fabric.

"You must have clipped part of the railing when we were thrown overboard. I've got it bandaged for now, but…" The captain looks away. "…I'm going to be honest with you—you've probably lost that eye."

"Think we should chop off my foot and get me a peg-leg while we’re at it?"

That gets a chuckle out of her. "Ahaha…come on, this is serious."

"The last thing I remember is the storm rolling in and everything going sideways. Do you think the others are alright?”

“No idea.” The captain stares in the direction the sound of waves is coming from. “I think we were the last ones above-deck, but there’s no way to know for sure.”

I can tell she’s nearly as exhausted as I am. Her greatcoat’s being used as my blanket, and in its absence she seems almost…deflated. She’s lost her bow, too, and as I drift back to sleep, I feel a pang of guilt as I realize what she must have used for my bandage.

***

I’m woken by the smell of smoke and charred meat. Seeing me stumble out from under the overhang, the captain hands me a roasted fish on a skewer.

“You’re just in time for breakfast.” She takes a bite from her own fish and chokes it down. “Ugh. I’ve been spoiled by Natsuki’s cooking.” She gestures to the far side of our makeshift shelter. “There’s a stream over there if you need something to wash out the taste.”

“Thanks.” I take a bite. It’s bland, but not as bad as she made it seem.

“I’m going to take a walk along the shore and see if we’re on an island or something bigger. In the meantime, you can stay here and gather supplies. Just don’t strain yourself, your wound’s still fresh.”

“Alright.”

Once we’ve finished our meal, the captain heads out along the beach, and I set to work. It doesn’t take long to gather enough driftwood to keep our fire stocked for the foreseeable future. What next? I think back to breakfast, and the way the captain forced down her fish…

***

“What’s all this?”

I nearly drop my skewer into the fire. I hadn’t noticed her approaching behind me. She’s staring at the pile of produce I’ve carefully stacked in the corner of our shelter.

“The roots are some kind of sweet potato, and the fruit tastes like pears, but sweeter. There’s coconuts, too.”

“That’s all well and good, but fishing might have been a better use of your time.”

“You don’t eat meat though, right? Natsuki told me once.”

“That’s...this is life or death, Anon, I can’t afford to be picky.” She sighs in resignation, smiles, and takes a skewer from the fire. “Still…this will be good while my stomach adjusts. Thanks.”

***

"I'm back!"

I glance up from my work. "Find anything good?"

"Nothing new, just more coconuts and some bark we can use to…" The captain pauses, surveying our shelter. "Did you do all of this today?"

"The weaving goes by pretty quickly once you get the hang of it." I hold up a mat I've made out of reeds. "I was just going to make us something to sleep on, but then I realized there was enough to make a proper cover for the lean-to. It should help keep the water out if another storm rolls in."

"You've even made baskets." She smirks as she sorts through the day's findings. "Has anyone ever told you you'd make a good housewife?"

"Please. I’m just trying to make myself useful."

The captain takes a coconut bowl and begins filling it with roasted crab and yams.

"Oh, don't forget to mix in some of that seaweed I've been drying, the salt should help give it some flavor."

She grins. "Ahaha! And he cooks, too! What a catch!”

***

“King me.”

I groan, swapping the captain’s stone for a similarly-colored seashell. My pieces had already been decimated; now it’s just an out-and-out slaughter.

“This was a good idea, Anon. We’ll need ways to pass the time on days like this.” The captain glances out the entrance of our shelter, taking a moment to appreciate the soft sound of rainfall.

“Those berries are pretty sour, but they make good ink.” I gesture to a small pile of bark sheets. “I made a board for nine-men’s morris, too. And backgammon, but then I realized we don’t really have a way to carve dice.”

“That’s a shame. If we had some dice or cards, there’d be some luck involved. Then maybe you’d have a chance of winning. Ahaha!”

“Don’t know if I’d gamble on the luck of someone stuck on a desert island.” I move one of my stones to capture hers; she immediately captures two of my pieces in return.

“Still, it’s sort of sad, isn’t it? If there’s no random element, games like this are just math. It’s technically possible to predict every move in advance…not that I’m that good.” She takes another seashell to represent her newest king. “Sorry, I kind of went off on a tangent there…”

***

The captain’s voice calls out from the beach. “Anon, come quick! You’ll never guess what I found!”

I stumble my way across the loose sand. “Is it as good as those peppers you brought back yesterday? Because…” My voice catches in my throat, stolen by the sight in front of me. The captain’s perched on the edge of a small wooden crate, a bottle of rum in each hand.

“The current must have washed it here, same as us!”

I laugh in disbelief. “Nevermind the booze, think of what we can do with the bottles! We can boil water, and make knives, and signal mirrors, and…”

She throws an arm around me. “Let’s not write the rum itself off just yet, Anon. Let’s celebrate a little tonight!”

***

There’s a satisfying pop as the captain wrestles the cork from her bottle and takes a long swig.

“Aah, that’s the stuff.” She takes a moment to savor the taste before taking another drink. “It goes well with that sauce you made.”

“I still can’t believe I can actually stew those peppers now.” I fight the cork free from my own bottle and take a sip. “Never figured you for much of a drinker, Captain. You’re always telling the rest of us to lay off.”

“That’s just because I have to be the responsible one. If you left Yuri to her own devices, she’d…well, that’s neither here nor there.”

There’s a long pause, broken by the crackling of the campfire. “Say, Anon? Why’d you stick with the crew?”

“What do you mean? Sayori practically kidnapped me, and then…”

“You didn’t HAVE to stay, though. The others don’t really have that choice.” She takes another swig of rum. “Sayori was headed straight for the poorhouse, or something worse. Yuri’s from a good family, but there’s no way she’d ever fit into proper society. And I’m guessing you’ve already figured out why Natsuki’s so good at patching up injuries…”

“I guess…my life wasn’t really going anywhere.”

“A dockhand’s not exciting work, but it’s respectable.”

“Yeah, but…” I try to figure out how to word my response to make it sound less stupid. “Maybe I spent too much time at the theater…some of the shows just got into my head, I guess, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing out on something.”

“A theater-goer, huh? What was your favorite show?”

“The Dread Pirate Captain Hemlock”. That or “Queen Rubinias”

The captain practically doubles over laughing.

“Ahahahahaha! I get it now Anon, I totally get it!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“You joined our crew because you wanted to be a dashing romance hero, shirt torn open and hair billowing in the wind~”

“That’s not—I mean, it’s…” I struggle to form a rebuttal. As much as I hate to admit it, she’s not exactly wrong.

“Ahaha! Watch out, here comes Anon, the ladykiller~” She flashes a wide grin and looks me up and down. “At least you’re starting to look the part. All that work in the rigging’s been doing you some good, I see.”

I blush a little at her compliment. “What about you, then, Captain?”

“Cut it with the ‘Captain’ already. We’re the only ones here. Just ‘Monika’ is fine.”

“So what about you, Monika? Why’d you choose this life?”

She stares into the fire, contemplating her rum. “I’m not like the others. I had good parents, a proper education…but then one day I overheard them talking about how it was time to start arranging my marriage, and it was like I realized how my whole life was already planned out for me. I couldn’t stand it, so I ran away, and eventually…ended up here.”

She stumbles to her feet and takes a seat next to me in the sand.

“In a way, this is nice, you know? Not having to worry about the boat, or the others. We never would have gotten a chance to talk like this normally.”

There’s another long silence, broken only by the sloshing of her liquor.

“Anon…would it be weird if I said I was enjoying myself?”

I take a long drink of my own. “No…I’m having fun, too.”

A light breeze makes the fire shudder.

“Hey, Anon? It’s getting kind of chilly, could I…?”

“Sure.”

She leans against me, resting her head on my shoulder. I put an arm around her, pulling her close enough that we can each smell the rum on each other’s breath…

***

I’m awoken by the sound of distant gunfire, and the sight of a flag breaching the horizon.

I shake Monika awake, pulling back the greatcoat we’d been using as a blanket. “Monika! Monika, wake up, it’s the others, we’re saved!

She blinks awake in confusion. “Anon, what are you—Ah! Ahaha! They did it! I can’t believe it!”

“I can’t either, I…huh?” I feel something wet drip onto my arm. I look up and see single tear streaming down Monika’s face. “Monika, what…?”

“Huh? Oh…oh damn.” She brushes away the tear and fixes her gaze on the sand. “I really…I’m really the worst…”

“Monika, what are you talking about?”

“They’re here to save our lives, and my first thought is “I don’t want this to end.” What a sorry excuse for a captain…”

“Hey, I’d be dead now if not for you. And besides…” I muster all the courage still lingering from last night’s rum. “…If I’m the romantic hero, who’s going to be my leading lady?”

Monika smiles, blinking away her tears as she squeezes my arm. “Ahaha…If that’s your best line, we’ll need to find you a better scriptwriter first!”