Kohled Eyes

The Second Chapter | Part Three

To this day, I never really understood what happened next. It was all a blur. I guess it was because the realisation finally sunk in; I was going to die.

I remember feeling like something was heavy and blocking my throat. I remember feeling my eyes getting moist. I remember the skies were gloomy. And I remember the seas were calm. I remember my legs were trembling.
And I vaguely remember the man-who-cut-the-other-guy's-throat talking to the captain. And the captain not even listening, with a wave of his hand showed that he was with whatever decision this guy made. And this guy's decision was apparently, to spare us.
After that point my memory is very clear.
We were moved to the other ship and I watched as the ship that had been my home made its journey to the seabed.
And we joined the crew of a pirate ship. As deckhands.
Yes. We were officially slaves.

***

We slept in the worst part of the ship. We ate the remainder of the food. And day in and day out, we cleaned the ship.
Cleaning a ship is no easy task. First off, none of the crew had any desire to keep anything clean. Heck, I don't even think they had the word hygiene in their vocabulary. And for someone who had lived their entire life in a village, and only been on a ship for two days, this was a lot to cope with. I was that someone.
No matter how much we scrubbed and scrubbed and scrub, there was no way it was getting clean- God knows from where, the dirt kept coming.
Did I mention the seasickness? No.

I kept getting seasick for around a month and I slept I fear every night that they would just get rid of me for being more of a headache than help.

But I guess since the ship is such a limitedly closed environment, you were bound to get to know and befriend each other. Very soon, in a couple of months we became a little more interactive with our kind hosts. It's not like they keep shouting "YARR!" and swinging their cutlasses every time they saw us. They were just normal men, doing normal men things. The only times we remembered we were in a pirate ship were when the occasional unfortunate merchant ship fell prey to us. Other than that, life was relatively normal.
We scrubbed. They drank and ate and had all the entertainment they could wish for.
I too drank when the occasional bottle was thrown at us. I ate whatever I could lay my hands on. Profanity became second nature. Violence was beginning to seem less violent. And I had nothing to show that I was Muslim except by name. It may seem a wonder that a boy born and raised in the best way possible turns into a mannerless brute within a few months. But, he was living with pirates.
It was inevitable.
But, one day, something happened that would change the rest of my life with the Pirates.