The Start
When she was a child, she ran with the wind and loved the Sun on her face. Back then, the world was an exotic mixture of colours, smells and wonderment and she took every opportunity to drink them all in – every single one of them. Life was electricity when you were starting out; love, hope, fear, and happiness were all painted in huge, large letters and it was all there for the owning, but once you started to take them all for granted, these pulses of life began to erode and would eventually disappear.
So, it was for Krystal, for she was still young enough to taste a little of the electricity in her mouth, but old enough to know that it was leaving her (like it did for all of us). Yet there was still a life of adventure out there to be lived – regardless of the dying of the light, and she wanted it.
There are stories and myths that come from all parts of this glorious world, some of them are downright lies but some of them are true. To be honest, most of them come from the fevered minds of those who should know better – but in among them all was one story that her grandfather had told her, and her mother, and her brother. It was about the Sky pirates – and how they would take to the air in their big wooden ship, and land in little towns and hamlets and rob the good folks who lived there. Their real name was the Astral Vikings, at least that’s what they called themselves – but Krystal knew them as the Sky pirates and that was how they’d stay (at least in her mind).
Even though the story had been told again and again, it had faded some in her mind and so she travelled to see her brother to ask him about who and what they were.
“They ain’t for the likes of you, Sis,” said her brother.
“That ain’t your call, now is it?” She told him. “All I want to know is when they come and how I can meet them.”
Her brother blew up his cheeks to show that she was asking a whole lot in that one question.
“They might kill ya,” he said.
“I’ll take my chances,” she responded. “So where can I meet them?”
And her brother told her about a hill that was about two clicks from the town and which would probably take about a day to climb.
“When do they get there?” She asked him.
“On the 32nd of every February,” he told her.
“There ain’t no such date,” she scolded.
“Oh, but there is. You just gotta look”.
She tried to weigh up what she was leaving behind, and in the end it didn’t seem that much. Most of her family had gone, and her brother lived some ways away. So, what did she have to lose? Pretty much nothing.
There was still a bit of waiting to be done. There were twenty-nine days in February that year, so Krystal packed her bag and on the morning of the 30th of February, she started out for the hill. There was really no one to say goodbye to, except maybe the stray cat who had befriended her.
“I would take you with me, but I ain’t sure that pirates don’t eat cats,” and without looking back she put one foot in front of the other and left her home for good.
By the 31st of that month, Krystal had reached the base of the hill. Now all she had to do was climb it. It was tougher and higher than she had dreamed but just before it grew dark on the 32nd of February, she stood at the top, smiled to herself and waited. She wasn’t sure for what but she waited all the same. She wasn’t alone, no sir – not by a long way. There was a queue of folks from little creatures to real hairy things. Each of them just as enthusiastic to be a Sky pirate.
She heard it before she could see it – the ‘putt,putt,putt’ of the great engines that kept the ship in the air, then through the clouds it came. Huge and magnificent. Someone shouted to her from the sky-ship, asking if she was looking to come aboard.
“You mean all of us?” She shouted back.
“Who else is with you” And sure enough, all the others had got scared and were running as fast as they could back down the hill.
Without a second’s delay, Krystal said that she was as ready as she’d ever be and so the great ship manoeuvred close to where she was standing. A man – one of the Astral Vikings – jumped on to the nearest ledge and ran a rope gangway over to where Krystal was standing.
He quickly jogged back to the vessel and left Krystal standing at the bottom of the gangway and at the start of a new life.
Should she? Would she? Was she brave enough?
And just like leaving home she put one foot in front of the other and walked towards the sky ship.
bobby stevenson 2017
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