Mother and Father,
It has been easily two years since I last wrote home, and I think it is ridiculous, and it is as equally ridiculous that I am writing a letter I will ever send because we have no possible way to send you letter from the middle of this forsaken ocean.
The San Antonio and the Santiago are gone, one dashed to bits on the rocks of a shore and the other returned back to home. I wish I could have joined them, and perhaps escaped the fate I am now facing. We are crossing an ocean that Magellan has instructed us to call the "Pacific", which means peaceful, of course, and, for the first while, i t was actually just that. Things quickly turned sour, though; we are quickly running out of food. We have been surviving on mold-ridden biscuits riddled with worms like a plague, and water so old and dusty it has turned a shade of yellow that can not possibly be okay to drink. Some men are so desperate for food and nourishment that they have resorted to eating even the ox-hide from the riggings and the sawdust from everywhere else. If one catches the rats that have been gnawing on the biscuits, he is considered lucky.
How is it that things are this horrible on a journey that was supposed to be somewhat pleasant? We thought we had caught a break and it was exactly the opposite! My gums are so swollen I can scarcely chew-- nay, my mouth has made it impossible to eat, and my stomach screams at me to do something! It has become so hard to do much of anything!
Weeks ago, before we started this horrible crossing of ours, this crossing that has rendered me utterly useless and completely unable to even do the simplest of jobs (I can barely hold a broom), we were attacked. It was inconsequential, and my attempt to save myself and my fellow men has proved fruitless. We will all die anyways, alone forsaken on the sea. It was nothing, really, though they had tricked us and thus destroyed our honor.
They were in a ship like ours, resembling the Victoria, in a way (it was certainly smaller, and certainly more pompous), and came towards us as if they planned to help. We allowed some of them on the ship, to explain why they were there, and then-- they attacked. We fought for hours, until we were completely sore and thought we could ever move again, and then we continued fighting if not to protect ourselves than to protect our mission. What a fat load of good that has done us.
I promise you that I will not be returning home. I am too far gone, and I can see nothing but endless ocean for miles and miles. I will die out here, and then you will know; there is nothing out there for us.
-Your child
YOU ARE READING
Snow On The Tombstones: A Collection of Flash Fiction and Vignettes
KurzgeschichtenA young man makes a serious mistake; an extraterrestrial explorer makes contact with an old temple; a group of friends sneak into an amusement park after hours; we are all tombstones; we are all here and gone.
