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The Flying Dutchman was a myth. One passed around the rows of drunken sailors slurring out forbidden pirate songs. Its ghostly hull had been seen not far from Tortuga, one said. No, another responded, spitting alcohol. It was lurking in a bay, far away among deserted islands. The sailors shrugged, huffed, spat out some insults, threw some punches, and you just kept laughing.
The Flying Dutchman was real. It was the last thing you saw as you clung onto that broken floorboard, your ship lying in multiple pieces of bloated wood around you. Surely there didn’t exist a worst sight than its gaping jaws, its splintery teeth, its ghastly hull covered in sleazy seaweeds, its rotten sails hanging low above a deck full of deformed demon, splitting the sea to collect its bounty of flesh. The demons laughed and shouted and screamed at you, and you wished the cannons had killed you before your eyes had laid upon this most cursed, wretched thing spat by Hell itself.
The Flying Dutchman was alive. You swore you could hear it croak and groan while it lolled over the raging waves of the roaring sea. The mast let out pleading screeches, wood working against water. The sails flapped their slimy wings, beating the wind itself while the ship carved its own stubborn way in those infernal waters. The rudder turned slowly, growling faintly as one of the demons grasped it. No sun had ever reached the creaking, rain-peltered deck. Your eyes were stuck on the mossy, damp floorboards, your hands going in mechanical movements to push away the thriving plants. The wood was soaked with sea water, and the salt dug mercilessly into the numerous cuts and wounds on your arms. You couldn’t look up, you could only glance at the outlines of those nightmarish creatures walking you by. Their distorted voices barked relentless orders and a stinking stench of death, rotten fish and faded blood accompanied their inhuman words. You saw the captain only once, and it had been enough to strike fear into your heart until the end of time.
The Flying Dutchman sang. The melody was oddly beautiful, a fragile lament that struggled to get out of the woody, putrefied innards of the hellish ship. The organ pulsed, letting out notes as gentle and fierce as the sea could be, twisting and swirling harmoniously amongst the howls of the wind and the ship alike. Sometimes they even managed to reach the deck before the ship eagerly swallowed them back in its belly where seashells sprouted and faces grew inside the walls.
The Flying Dutchman never reached land. Your thoughts faded, slowly eaten by the endless wailings of the ship. Your head was full of the crashing of the waves against the decaying carcass that was the hull, of the flapping of the sails, of the bitter, endless cries of the wind that was its only companion. Sometimes the melody would escape, slithering between the dripping cracks of the walls, making its way past the swelling seashells and the corals sprouting like ugly, mishappen bouquets over the railings, reaching your faintly beating heart. Its complaint, sometimes mournful, sometimes as ferocious as the waves beating all around you, sparked a little something in you, stirred a little bit of what was left of your humanity, but it never lasted. Your eyes were always blurry, full of sea salt, crying tears that were immediately lost among the rain. Your cuts never healed. They grew and festered until mussels and razor clams and barnacles nestled inside your suppurating flesh, curling between the edges of the gashes and open cuts, sprouting over your infected muscles overnight. They fell and rolled on the floor of the ship when you clawed at them, your soft nails bumping against their hard shells, but they always came back, eagerly taking root in your darkening skin, crushing your veins, squeezing their spiraling shells between clumps of rotting flesh.
The Flying Dutchman would be there, forever and always. You could feel the pulsing of its heart as you sat against the wall, the wood gently parting way to welcome your hunched and tired body. No crewmate bothered to look at you, no crewmate pulled you out of there. It was natural. It was even soothing. You were closer to the very heart of the ship, where you could hear better the sweet, sweet melody you had so longed for during all those years. You didn’t notice when feelings left your nerves, when the wood slowly ate your arm, pulling it inside the hull. You didn’t notice the seaweed crawling around your ankles, locking their slimy and wet greenish body over your pallid flesh. Your hair, already thinning, clinging desperately to your skull, melted among the dripping anemones. The mollusks and crustaceans gleefully climbed up your face, sinking in your cheeks, covering your ears. Your eyes had stopped leaking now.
The ship ate to its heart’s content and sailed away.
The Flying Dutchman was a myth. One passed around the rows of drunken sailors slurring out forbidden pirate songs. Its ghostly hull was after Jack Sparrow, one said. No, another responded, spitting alcohol. It was after the chest, lurking among lost islands. The sailors shrugged, huffed, spat out some insults, threw some punches, and got back on their ships, ignoring the incoming storm looming in the sky.