The Next Move

Make a move, he tells himself.

Salty water rushes into his mouth, choking him, burning his lungs and nostrils until he has no choice but to turn his head and cough. He kicks and shakes, the fear of drowning taking over his senses. The ground scrapes his cheek like sandpaper, and he realises all too suddenly that it is sand. He wasn’t in the water, after all.

What happened?

Though his head is ringing, he can hear the unmistakable sound of the ocean at his feet. His clothes feeling cold and wet, sticking to his body. A sharp pain stings the back of his head.

Where am I?

A wave washes over him again, and his eyes open, adjusting to the morning light.

He is on a white beach.

The man’s head throbs and burns, forcing him to touch the tender part of the back of his skull. One look at his hand reveals a faint trickle of blood. He had somehow hurt his head. But how? And where? He can’t put his finger on it, but he was certain that this place was not his home, that he didn’t belong on this beach.

How did I get here?

The wave only reaches up to his legs this time, soaking his trousers, then retreats back to the ocean. He coughs and wipes his face in panic, hands trembling to know what was happening.

What is this place?

Large palm trees sway not even ten yards ahead. Recently ripped leaves, damp sand and the smell of rain hints to a storm that must have passed not too long ago. Though the sun shines, thunder rumbles far away across the ocean, black clouds rolling out to sea. The ocean is a bright blue, beautiful and tropical.

What day is it?

The questions pound and bounce in his brain. So many questions. All of them unclear, but only one truly took his breath away, one that makes him gasp and crawl away from the shore.

Who am I?

One look down at his outfit did not give him any familiar hints to his identity. His shirt appears old-tailored, white and baggy. The vest is made of some light brown animal leather, his trousers some dark, baggy and unconventional material, almost as if it was once a sack. It is all hand-sewn, held up with a knotted leather belt. Even his shoes appear strange; rusted buckles on dark brown leather boots.

Am I a pirate?

Not even the first letter of any name could form on his lips. But he knew things. He knew he could talk English. He knew he could swim. He knew the taste of food. He knew the taste of alcohol. He knew the feel of a woman. So many things he knew, but not his name, not anyone associated with him, or how he came to be here.

Pirate… yes… I must be. At least until my memory returns. But there’s something else… something I can’t put my finger on.

The jungle seems to call to him, primitive cries of birds and insects deep inside. It is both fascinating and mysterious.

Something is wrong with all of this.

The pirate crawls up to stand close to rocks poking from the sand and surveys the coast. To his right is a tall wall of rocks spearing into the ocean, too tall to climb as it juts upwards and back towards the jungle. And to his left is a short beach, wrapping around further to hug the shore.

On the coast sat pieces of old wood, splintered and destroyed. It looks like the remains of an old ship, massive dark strips of timber sitting damp and broken as waves pound gently against them.

The pirate blinks his eyes hard to believe what he is seeing; not even twenty yards from him is a body, appearing lifeless, lying face down in the sand, only the feet being licked by the waves.

“Hello!” the pirate calls out, hoping this person is merely out cold as he himself had been. “Hello!” he yells again, this time urgency in his voice and step as he runs to the lying figure.

Does this person know me? Maybe you’re alive and can tell me who I am… how I got here.

With a trembling hand he pushes the man’s right shoulder, watching the weight shift and the upper body twist upwards to face the sun.

A crab pounces from the dead man’s mouth.

The smell took to the wind then, and the pirate falls backward in shock and terror.

Have I ever seen a dead body before? He wasn’t sure, but his reaction implied that this wasn’t a regular occurrence for him.

He quickly overcomes his fear and makes to investigate this stranger further.

The eyes of the dead man stare up at the sun, blue and empty. He looked about mid-thirties. His face is scratched and slightly sun-burned with over a week’s worth of dark stubble, the short dark hair damp and the scalp spotted with flecks of salt and sand.

Do I know this man?

There is a faint hint of the familiar, but the harder he tries to grab the memory the more it eludes him.

The pirate pulls the body away from the shore, closer to the jungle, out of the heat of the sun.

On inspection, the dead man is dressed in some multi-layered robes of black and red. It has a cowl, flipped back and covering the neck. Along his waist are pouches and holsters made of black leather. Even the boots are of a fine material; many more straps and buckles than even he has. In fact, the whole outfit is of finer quality, almost as if this were some man of importance, while he look only like a worker on a ship deck. All of value on the dead man’s person is a single cutlass in the holster, appearing sharp and used, and in the pouch is an old compass and a brass key with a skull shape on the top. The pirate places them in his pocket, except for the dagger which fits snug inside his belt.

Frustration is beginning to seep in, the pirate tightens his fists, trying to remember something. Anything.

We must have been on the ocean, he deduced, caught in a storm and shipwrecked. The pirate isn’t sure. He didn’t know, and guessing like this was no more than words as memories failed to appear in his mind.

There has to be others, he reasoned, more survivors who can tell me what happened. Tell me who I am.

The pirate stands, taking one last look at the stranger, nods his head and decides to leave the body here to the crabs for the time being.

Sounds of the jungle take over his senses once more, and he takes two generous steps in, noticing pools of water that were left behind by the rain.

He wants to wash his face, wipe away all this salt that stings his eyes. The pirate kneels down to clean himself in the puddle when he catches his own reflection and falls backwards in fright, his mind aches even more.

He gasps in disbelief, feeling dizzy and weak.

What the hell?

He crawls to the puddle, comes to a stop and stares, poking under his eyes, tweaks his nose and cheeks at the man in the water.

It is his reflection, and he looks exactly like the dead man on the beach.