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He sits in the sun, staring ever off into space; waiting for someone, something that may never come. He had a chance, he knows this, he turned it down, that too he knows. Still he waits hoping his chance will come again.
He waits for a ship with black sails, and the pirate that captains it. The reason he didn't take his last chance is dead and gone, in the ground nearly a year.
His beautiful wife, and their child, both taken from him at the same time. From a fever that raged across the island. His daughter, as beautiful as his wife, not even a year old.
So he sits and he waits, and he hopes that the pirate captain he turned down has heard the news and will return for him. He has no use for the land any more; it only serves to remind him of what he lost. The sea is what he longs for now, the sea and the sight of a ship with black sails, a pirate captain with kohl rimed eyes at the helm, coming to take him away.
The towns people just shake their heads when they see him sitting there staring out to sea, and whisper how their deaths where to much for him to take. They'd all hoped time would heal the pain. But still he sits and waits, for death they think, to take him from the pain of living without them.
Then one day a ship appears on the horizon, a ship with black sails. The people of the town see this and hide in their homes. But he, he just walks to the end of the pier, he knows the ship has come for him, that it will not harm the town.
The ship pulls up; a man with kohl rimed eyes leans over the side and offers him a hand up. He takes it and gets on the ship, never again to return to the town.
The towns people watch this through their windows, some frown at what they see, but others, who knew the man well, smile, knowing this is for the best, this is what he truly wants.
He's happy now, on the sea. He's found love again, with the pirate with kohl rimed eyes. He's been past the town where he once lived. He never looks when they float past, not even at the place where his family is buried. Even when the ship does stop at a port friendly to their kind he rarely goes to shore. His pirate lover doesn't understand, but he's never loved something tied to the land.
He thinks that one day he'll learn not to distrust the land. Sometimes he wishes he'd let his world be larger then the ship. But not now, maybe someday soon, but not now.
Then one day he goes to shore, the pain is no longer there, because now he belongs to the sea, like his lover always has. He's lost any nativity he had; he's truly become a pirate. He drinks, he swears, he tells outlandish tales, he plunders; he loves his captain, the ship, and the sea.
He hopes she's not mad at him, he doesn't think she is, she wouldn't have wanted him to mourn forever. She might even approve of his new love; she was almost as found of him as he is.
One day they'll all be reunited, he's sure. But not now, not today, not for a long time, he and his pirate captain with kohl rimed eyes have many more places to see, adventures to have, and treasure to plunder.
Then, once they've done all they can, the three of them will be reunited. And his pirate captain can meet his daughter.
But until that day he will live his life on the sea, in the ship with black sails, loved by a pirate with kohl rimed eyes, and enjoy his life as it is. But on occasion he stares into space and thinks of when they'll meet again, a smile on his face.
His lover knows he thinks of this, and sometimes does it himself. But they always have each other, in the now, and try not to dwell in the future, because it will come soon enough. Then they'll pass into legend and never be forgotten, the pirate with the kohl rimed eyes, the man who once waited for a ship to take him away, and the wife and child he lost.