So I'm a few days late. But the timing of this story's pirate theme coincides better with its real-world counterpart, which completely validates my procrastination. I thought it might be nice to bookend Short Story Week this year with visits to the Carousel (to bring it full circle. Ha! I kill me!) and give Caris her turn in the driver's seat.
Thanks for sharing Short Story Week 2017 with me. We've got the month of Halloween coming up (some people call it October) and then I'm heading into my eleventh nanowrimo! Wow! So many words typed. Where does the quality go? All right, see you all after my head clears. Take us home Caris.
Buried Treasure
I have a confession to make; a vast majority of the time I have no idea why I do many of the things I do. My impulsiveness was undoubtedly a factor in everything from my three months of homelessness to that embarrassing incident with the desk fan. But on the upside, it got me into a relationship with someone who I love very deeply. The fact that she's literally a creature from another world is one of those details I tend not to overthink.
My sympathies lie entirely with Zel in regards to her daily confusion. Our world/society/culture is highly nuanced, something we take for granted having grown up in it. And poor Zelphina, trying her best to pass for an ordinary human being, is consistently bombarded with new frequently illogical stimulus to have to untangle. And it invariably doesn't help that she has an impulsive girlfriend like me, who can rarely explain her "let's do this!" approach to life.
So one morning I went out for a morning jog, letting her sleep without intrusion. I'm sure it was peaceful for her. And I'm sure whatever she dreamed about was much less surreal than the sight she awakened to; yours truly in a bandanna, frilly shirt, eye patch, fake hook, and a stuffed parrot (named Poggles, just for the record) perched on my shoulder. She opened her mouth, but no words in the countless languages she knows poured out of it.
"Arr, matey!" I said. "All hands hoay!"
Zel stared at me with precisely the amount of blankness to which she was entitled. "What," she stammered, "in the hell...has happened?"
"Yo ho ho, lassie! This day we go on account!" I declared. "Batten down the hatches ye scurvy bilge rat! Hoist them sails! There be scallywags afoot!"
I can't blame her for being genuinely concerned about my mental state, as none of this was making any sense to her. "Caris? Are you..."
"Three sheets to the wind? Nay, buccaneer. This cute leggy seadog has answered the siren's call of adventure on the high seas!" I reached into the shopping bag which held the rest of my cheap costume shopping spree and pulled out the flyer advertising the mall's indoor Pirate golf course, setting it in front of my increasingly bewildered girlfriend. "What say ye?"
"I can't understand what you're saying, Caris."
I kissed her on the nose. "It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day." I really wasn't trying to be a brat, but Zel is so adorable when she's confused that I can't help myself. Any time she has to recover from my insipid absurdity is my chance to get lost in those big emerald eyes of hers.
"Is this day a legal requirement?"
"No, honey. It's just for fun. And that mini-golf course is offering a buy one round get one free to anyone who goes dressed as pirates. What do you think?" I smiled and batted my eyelashes. I like to pretend that my patented eyelash bat can get Zel to agree to anything, but the truth is she'll say yes to anything that she thinks will make me happy. This was no exception.
"Okay," she said, binding herself into another sweet promise that she'd hold herself to. "What's mini-golf?"
Zelphina was fished out of the ocean by a salvage drone, somewhere between South America and Australia. As far as anyone in that operation knew, she was a human corpse. Her body was completely undamaged, like she'd only been dead for a few minutes. Apparently an hour later her eyes opened, followed not immediately by an exhalation of seawater. I can only imagine the conversations that must have happened while she was onboard.
She was 'property' of a larger corporation by the time she started speaking, and up until then the records were referring to her only as 'the mermaid'. Since then, her species has been narrowed down to an 'otherwise', which isn't necessary to get into right now.
I'm still like to think of her as a mermaid. Our first night together was on a beach. I didn't know what she was, but I knew she wasn't human. And falling asleep with her to the rolling waves imprinted this notion in my head of Zelphina the mermaid. Every night since then, I drift off to the memory of that beach.
I sat on the bench at the front counter of the mini-golf place, watching my mermaid purchase our couple's game from the attendant who was going to get nowhere asking her to smile. Did I say watching? I meant ogling. Zel made for one really hot pirate; in her cute tricorn hat, tunic, and belt (six dollars for the whole package). The best thing? They didn't fit her. If she walked the plank, I'd follow her like a Hamelin rat.
She finished at the counter, collecting two clubs and two balls (purple and red), and met me at the walkway to the first hole. She showed me the card that the attendant had given her. "This is to keep score," she said, half as a question.
"Yeah, we're not going to worry about that. Did he charge you?"
"For one of us to play, yes."
"That's a pity," I said. "I figured he'd take one look at your neckline and tell you not to worry about it."
"He said he wouldn't charge me as long as I smiled."
I nodded. "That makes sense."
"Why did you want me to make the transaction?"
"So I could check you out." I bumped her hip with mine. "It was worth the price of admission. Okay so here's how this works. First, choose your golf ball, preferably not the purple one."
"I assumed you'd want purple."
"You know me so well." I laughed. "Okay, see that hole over there by the fake tree? What you want to do is get your ball into the hole..." I'd not even finished the sentence when she pitched the ball sideways, bouncing it twice and dropping it into the cup.
She looked at me expectantly. "Now what?"
If we'd been playing seriously, I would have been down four strokes by the time I got her to understand what the club was for. The fourth hole was a wrecked pirate ship with a thin ramp leading to the good tunnel. There was no doubt she'd hit it perfectly, but if the tunnel wasn't calibrated properly it might be her first hole in more than one.
Again, I'd taken a spectators view behind my girlfriend. Zel assumed the stance I'd previously shown her. "So feet like this?"
"Yep, perfect." It was really sweet of her to take golfing advice from someone she was unquestionably beating.
"Club down. Shoulders back."
"Check and check."
She did the golfer's wiggle I'd casually inserted into the ritual. "Loosen the hips?"
I smirked, which grew into a giggle as she realized who that step was for.
"Are you still staring at the booty shorts?"
Sometimes I can't help but be an infant; the other times I just don't want to help it. "Well, technically I'm staring at your booty. The booty shorts just happen to be in the way." I was pretty damned impressed that Zel wore them. I'd bought them as a joke; literal booty shorts, with the skull and crossbones and the accurate words 'I'm all about the booty' across the perky posterior region. Zel had put them on without hesitation, all because she knew it would make me smile. And now she stood at the fourth tee, humorless expression, and an extra wiggle just for me. "I love you."
She shifted the angle of her club. "I love you as well." She swung. The ball hopped outside the course, dodging the ship altogether, and back in where the hole was, scoring another hole in one.
"Now you're just showing off," I said.
Hole thirteen. We were in a cave; having outwitted a sea serpent, nine skeletons, and a whirlpool. I was in the process of deciding which curvy path through the fiberglass stalagmites I wanted to send my ball (that I'd named Bonny Violet).
Zel and Ruby Read patiently awaited my course heading, probably tallying up how many times higher my overall score was than theirs (between three and four I'd expect). "May I make two observations?" asked Zel.
"You can make as many observations as you like if you can say them in pirate," I told her. Medium swat from the club and Bonny Violet rolled up the right slant, snaking around a stalagmite, repeating the process on the left before finally coming to rest in the middle of the fairway. I pointed at her proudly. "Okay, that was pretty cool!"
"May I make two observations without saying them in pirate?"
"You may." I never know what she's going to take notice of, but it's always entertaining.
"Pirates didn't play golf."
"Neither did dinosaurs, but some of them frequently wind up on the course."
"Your species romanticizes pirates, and it seems the defining element you attach to is the concept of buried treasure. Is this correct?"
I found Bonny Violet and prepared to give her another love tap. "I hadn't thought about it, but probably. There's a certain primal attractiveness about following a dotted line to a big red X."
"And uncovering a large chest?"
I gave her a wink. "Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?" I could tell from the slight pause that Zel was debating whether to ask for clarification about my reference or ignore it and move on.
"I've been wondering why you were so excited about this activity and I think I have the answer. You engage strongly in anything that can be viewed as a metaphor. This mini-golf course represents an adventure that someone has laid out for you and that ball represents you. I expect some part of your mind has been devising a rudimentary narrative for your ball as we've played through the past twelve areas."
Bonny Violet dove into the thirteenth hole after three strokes, and I rescued her. "You know, sweetie? Sometimes I think you know why I do things better than I do. Was that both observations?"
"That was one. It got out of hand."
"What's the other?"
"In a game as simple as sending a round object from point A to point B, you're not as interested in fulfilling that goal as you are in finding the most interesting way to achieve it. For you, the buried treasure isn't uncovered at the end, but throughout the journey."
That was a moment. It was a silly moment, in a fake cave, during a pointless game, where for whatever reason the world just fell away. I can't really describe it other than I felt naked; comfortably me, standing in front of someone who saw me exactly as I was. I could have stayed in that moment forever.
"Zel?" I said. "Kiss me."
The last hole was designed to look like a beach; fake palm tree on the left, and a speaker disguised as a pile of rocks on the right airing a loop of 'Sounds of the Ocean'. Dead ahead was a steep incline leading up to a huge treasure chest with an open lid. Hole-in-one was guaranteed as long as you weren't stupid about it; the kids ahead of us treated the tee like a driving range, golf balls flew everywhere except the hole.
"We've arrived, me stalwart lass," I said, as we set foot on the imaginary sand. "T'were a fine voyage."
Zel sighed. "I'm assuming that means you enjoyed yourself?"
I bobbed my head. "I always have fun when I'm with you."
"I know you mean that. Do you want to go first?"
"Why don't we do it together? I suggested. "Like shipmates."
Zel set us up and took her position opposite me. "Ready?"
"To ladies of fortune," I cheered.
She nodded back. "May we always have our journeys intertwined."
"And enough booty for everyone."
"You're incorrigible," Zel snickered. "You know that?"
And there it was. The buried treasure I didn't realize I was looking for. That smile. Quick. There, and gone. Like a mermaid who popped her head above the surface before vanishing below again, forever captivating the adventurer lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time.
I forgot to hit the ball.
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