Stacey Cajita, 4/7/2021, PD8, Day C

Stacey Cajita

4/7/21

Period 8

Modern Mythology 2021

Creativity & Fiction

• Craft a piece of fiction that addresses one or more of the following: 

Literary elements (i.e. structure, tone, diction, mood, irony, and figurative     language) to craft a narrative and/or poetry.

Structural features of drama (stage directions, character attributions/tags, dialogue, monologues, and/or soliloquies) to craft a script.

Multidimensional characters to develop themes and create socio-political metaphors.

twelve days at sea (the diary of sadie morgan)

Below is a transcription of a diary taken from a pirate ship believed to date from 1700s England. Mysteriously left floating for centuries, the Heart of the Sea arrived on the coast of Australia in 2004. According to Australian experts, the only artifacts of what happened to the ship included a box of toothpicks, a folded boat, and this diary. No bodies were found on board, and nautical research teams are currently searching along the alleged trail of the ship for any clue of what happened to the crew onboard.

Day 1

Dear diary,

Today marks the day the Heart of the Sea is officially mine to sail! It is no longer a sailor that is writing in this journal; no longer a sailor, but a captain. 

Isn’t that so exciting?

My name is Sadie Morgan, CAPTAIN of the HEART OF THE SEA! You will hand over all of your treasures, your women, and your nobles, or else you will face my SWORD! 

Wait, should I say gun? I don’t use a sword. But “sword” sounds so much better… Wanted Dead or Alive: Sword-Swinging Sadie. 

Oh, even better: Sword-Swinging Sadie, Plunger of the Seven Seas. Well… maybe that’s a bit long. 

We can figure out my infamous pirate nickname when I’m on the sea. 

Speaking of the sea! (Well, not really. I’m not speaking of the sea. I just thought of something different.)

I met my crew today! Ah, needless to say, I doubt that they expected a literate woman like myself to be their captain, but I’m sure we’ll be able to get along. (After all, they are all aware of my piracy credentials. Well… they should be. They signed up to be a part of this crew, after all.)

Hey, if I’m the only literate person on board, that means they can’t read this diary. Which is great! All to myself. :)

Anyways, I’ll get going now! We have a long day trying to catch the winds in our sails… or however the saying goes. Farewell for now!

Day 3

Dear diary,

I forgot to write yesterday - sorry! The past few days have been absolutely exhilarating - I swear we saw a whale yesterday!

The food isn’t really that great, but what do you expect out on the open sea? A buffet? We aren’t some nobles. In fact, we’re very anti-noble! We would eat rats if we could!

(No we wouldn’t. Unless they were cooked)

It’s been a while since we saw land - I think we got blown off course a bit. It shouldn’t be too bad. We have to reach land at SOME point. Maybe we could hit the Indian trade market..?

Being out on the open sea has been pretty lonely - seeing blue for so long, stretching forever and ever. I guess it’s a good thing I’ve bonded with some of my crew members! 

One-Eyed Jones is pretty new to being out on the sea for so long, so he gets sick often, but he remains as jovial as ever. He doesn’t actually have only one eye - he’s blind in one eye, but he still has it, so I count it as a lie. Same thing with three-leg Maisie - she doesn’t actually have three legs, she just has an extra toe (something that I had the unfortunate opportunity to see wiggle around in her boots). And Big Bucky is… well, Big Bucky! He’s an absolute sweetheart, and he’s great with a map. Although… I guess we are off course… but it’s not his fault. 

The rest of the crew sometimes treats me like I’m a joke, but I’m sure that they just need some more time to get to know me. They already know my mean poker face :) 

Three-Leg Maisie and I have been getting as close as ever - we’re really the only two women on this crew, and the two of us have to stick together. She’s not literate - and therefore, I’ve been teaching her how to read and write. Here’s her first attempt:

. / <

          / ~

‘

(The swaying of a ship makes it very difficult to write. She doesn’t have much strength in her hand to put the pen on the paper. She made a few dots, though, so I consider that a start.)

In return, she’s been sitting with me up by the crow’s nest every morning. She says that it’s the best place to sit, and that if she could write, she would sit up here and describe every sunrise in perfect prose. So that’s what I’ve been doing. The sunrise today is a perfect lilac - just like the flowers resting on the graves back at Canterbury’s each Easter. The clouds have pooled by the meeting place of the sea and the sky, so the sun peeks all shy behind a fluffy mass of pink. 

I’m sure Maisie will take the post any moment now. I’ll have to go, but I will write tomorrow!

Day 4 

I’m writing this at night - hello! 

There is something very beautiful about sitting in the crow’s nest at night. The stars’ twinkles give me the same quiet pleasantness that sugar’s taste gives me. One-Eyed Jones came here and sat here with me just now - well, I actually had to climb down to sit with him. He doesn’t trust his depth perception when he climbs up to the crow’s nest. He’s always terrified of missing the next rung on the ladder up. “You’d think I’d be used to this by now,” he says. (He says that about everything. Even about eating. Sometimes he tries to spoon some grits on his plate, but stops short and scrapes the air in front of him.)

The crew seem to be warming up to me. The youngest one on the crew is just a little lad - he must have just hit his teenage years. We call him Swashbuckler Stan - he has big dreams of being a captain someday. Being raised in an orphanage, he’s learned how to do many tasks, including this strange paper-folding technique! He’s made triangular shaped objects that float when you throw them and paper boats and foldable little cranes out of ripped papers from this journal. His creativity and hope reminds me of myself when I was a little girl. I’m sure that someday he’ll be able to commandeer his own ship just like the Heart of the Sea. 

Hell, maybe I’ll even take him in as my apprentice! Sword-Slinging Sadie and Swashbuckler Stan - hm. It seems like a bit of a mouthful.

We also have an older gentleman - we simply call him Gray Jack. His real name is Benjamin, but he’s so good at blackjack (and he has gray hair) we appropriately named him Gray Jack. He gives me a run for my money - I’ve had to fork over many a silver piece just because I’ve lost card games to him. He’s plenty more experienced than anyone else on my ship, and I’m glad he’s warmed up to me. He seems like the kind of pirate you’d want to have mentor you in the ways of sailing and swashbuckling. 

We don’t seem to be getting back on track to our destination any time soon. At times it feels as though we have not moved anywhere for the past three days, but other times, I can see birds flying in the air and it gives me hope. Such is the life of a pirate - I’ve had a few experiences with being lost on the sea, but we always get back on track eventually. Perhaps it is the fact that this is my crew - this is my voyage, and of course I want to get us to our destination as fast as possible. I do think I’m just too nervous. Yes, it must just be that I’m too nervous. We will be fine. 

I have to go now - the reason I’m still awake in the night is because Big Bucky has been feeling rather unwell, and I worry for his health. He’s been oddly pale, and his heartbeat is rushed and powerful in his chest. 

However, I’m sure he will be fine. He’s been on many ships before, and this is likely nothing but a small flu for such an experienced sailor. 

Day 5

The sunrise feels more and more gray as time goes on. Today I could not even see the sunrise. It was masked by a thick wall of black clouds, a chill accompanying them that crept deep into my bones.

When I found Stan today, he was doing his usual work - sweeping the poop deck, cleaning the windows, and what have you. But there was something off about him - there were deep circles below his eyes, and his hands were shaky and always trembled. When I was just about to ask him if he was alright, he darted to the side of the ship and threw up his breakfast. 

One-Eyed Jones has agreed to care for the both of them in the medbay while I try to keep the morale of the crew as high as I can. Stan is a great beacon of hope in our crew, and seeing the baby of the crew in such pain has been jolting for all of us. 

He swears that he’ll be okay, though. There’s a glimmer of hope in those eyes of his, and they make me believe him. 

I hope, however, that my dear Stan does not see Big Bucky in the other corner of the room. He’s been asleep for the whole afternoon, and his heart rate has gotten so loud I can hear it when I sit by his bedside. It’s gotten to the point where I have to sit in the center of the medbay room and watch him from a distance to keep the thump-thump-thump of his chest from burning itself in my mind. 

There’s nowhere else I can sleep except for the crow’s nest. I can hear Jones’ heartbeat when he falls asleep, too.

The silence of the stars is a welcome reprieve.

Day 6

Dear diary, 

I went downstairs to visit the brig. It’s only been six days since we departed from shore - once we hit land, we have to make sure the brig is ready to hold prisoners… I hope one of them is a doctor. 

We keep toothpicks in the brig to make sure those watching the prisoners can pick the food out of their teeth when they can’t come up to wash themselves off, but the stock is gone. When I reached for the box to find something to fidget with, I was met with dust. 

I played a card game to take my mind off of everything with Gray Jack, and somehow he beat my ace of hearts! I was shocked to see he held the diamo

One-Eyed Jones burst out of the medbay to hurl over the edge of the boat

He leaned too far forwards

Day 7

Dear diary,

This is the last sunrise I will describe to you. The sky has turned black with the plague of dark clouds, and the sun is unrecognizable in its scarlet haze. Gazing at the red sun - this beautiful being that once comforted me just as the stars had - burns holes in my eyes and reminds me of how alone we are. 

The Heart of the Sea was built to carry a great crew, with beautiful architecture for late-night partying and drinking. This ship used to bustle with people and pirates and excitement for the destination we were set to plunder.

Now, all that’s left is their bodies in slumber below deck, and their heartbeats echoing through the chambers of the ship. Not even the crow’s nest is safe anymore. No matter where I go, their combined heartbeats bear weight on my mind, forcing every other thought except for their thump, thump, thumping throughout my brain. 

I found the toothpicks from the brig. They were in Maisie’s hand as she slumped in the crow’s nest.

I try not to look at her face.

She does not mind the toothpicks pricking into her eyelids - nor does she seem to take notice of the blood streaming down her cheeks every time she tries to blink. The whites in her eyes have been painted pink, and her emerald orbs have grayed. 

I found her staring at the red sunrise. 

The sun expands ever so little with every thump-thump-thump of her heartbeat. 

Day 8

I can’t handle it anymore. 

Thump, thump, thump

It sounds in my ears day and night. Thump, thump, thump, I feel it shaking the ship, thump, like giants stepping, thump, on the ocean floor, thump, and disrupting the waves with every step, thump thump thump. Where am I? What day is it? 

I tried jamming corn kernels into my ears, but they were much too mushy to stay put. I tried climbing up to the crow’s nest, but Maisie’s still there, with her eyes still gazing ahead and the loud thump-thump-thump of her heart radiating from her body. I tried steering the boat back, but the winds pushed me so far I think I did a full circle.

I don’t want to be alone. Maisie won’t move. Stan won’t wake up. I can still feel Jones’ ghost following the ship, carrying whispers of the captain I was supposed to be. 

The heartbeats are driving me crazy. They sound as though they are right next to me, inside my mind, even though all the bodies are below deck. The rhythm of their thump-thump-thump keeps me from falling asleep and their vibrations through the floor keep me from standing up straight on the ship. 

Nobody will wake up. 

Day 10

Today I made paper boats. 

I ripped out as many papers as I could from this journal without disrupting the writing, and I folded them into little boats as best as I could remember Stan teaching me. I dropped them all off of the edge of the boat and watched half of them sink - a sign of my lack of expertise with Stan’s folding techniques. 

But the other half floated - stationary, they stayed, hovering just above the water.

Where is the wind? Where are we going?

Are we moving? Have we been moving at all?

Where am I?

Day 11

The thump thump thump refuses to cease. 

Not even after I tossed all thirty three of my crew mates into the ocean to rest in a better grave than the ship. 

It’s as if the red sun looming above my head has a heartbeat; taunting me, reminding me how much of a failure of a captain I am. “Captain Sadie Morgan,” it mocks, “captain of the Heart of the Sea!” 

I don’t need your mockery. I already have this journal, the writings of a crazed woman who thought she could be the next Anne Bonny, the next Blackbeard, the next Henry Morgan. When I open this diary, I see the writings from my youth all the way to the first day of sailing, and I cannot even recognize the woman who wrote those pages. 

I’ve begged the dark sky to spit hellfire upon me. I’ve begged the clouds to strike me by lightning, to give me a hellish rain, for anything - but the dark clouds just leer down at me, cackling at my frustration at their inaction. 

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, it thunders in my ears the more I write in this journal. I can’t take it anymore. 

We’re not moving. The ship is stationary in the sea, the winds refuse to let me go back home, and I am all alone on a ship cursed by the ghosts of its crew to echo their heartbeats for eternity.

The sea gazes at me like a friend.

Day 12

I can feel my heartbeat within the sloshing, sluggish waves. 

The sea reaches its long tendrils deep into my soul, wraps around my heart and encapsulates it in a murky pool of lust and longing.

The dark clouds looming above my boat assure me that the Heart of the Sea will go on forever - it will never perish. It will never be lost. It will survive the tests of the water.

I am alone.

I will become one with the sea.

I will reach the heart of the sea

I will become the heart o f t he se a