It was a corporate wide event. And I had arrived by smuggling myself on board one of the pirate boats. My old department was small, so there were few people on the boat and how I got off, I don’t recall, but I remember that we were attacked before we docked. A pile of children came at us with bows and arrows because the island was occupied mostly by children with only a few adults to tame them.
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While on the boat it was touch and go whether I would be caught and walked off the plank by the captain. He paced up and down on the quarterdeck while I sat at the back behind a greasy black haired shipman who took notes while the captain barked orders.
I tapped the shipman on the shoulder and pointed at his yellow legal notepad for a sheet I could use. On his pad he had scribbled notes and doodles. He opened the pad and pulled out a sheet for me then I pointed at a spare pencil tucked in the folds of the pad and he gave me the pencil too.
The attack must have created a diversion and somehow I was not discovered until I was safely on the island. Then I sat down at the dinner table which was altogether a more civilised affair.
At the table I sat next to a woman whose head was inside a goldfish bowl. Her head filled the bowl up to the surface of the glass so that her face looked bloated. The woman looked cute and I thought to talk to her after the rest of the entertainment was over.
A man and his mistress came up to me and asked me for a dance. They wore Georgian dress, white like ceiling paint, and the man sported thigh length boots, a white waist length jacket and high white collar.
The mistress peeled away and the man held me close. His clean smell, bristly square cut face and short cropped blonde hair made him quite attractive.
The man and I danced a new waltz, even though I thought it time to switch partners—out of decorum mind—but then he lost his shoe and had to excuse himself anyway.
The woman wearing the goldfish bowl was standing up when the man left me, but though she was smiling through the glass of the bowl at me I didn’t approach her. I was still wary that the company might realize that I should not be there. So I sat back down at the table instead and began to recall the events of the pirate ship using the piece of paper I had secured.
Image called Kraken Sunset by Andrewcs77 via DeviantArt.
