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The Ship
#WritcoStoryPrompt14
The loud, hollow siren of the ship's horn jolted the sleepy, port town.
She emerged out of the swirling mist like a star making a grand entrance. Only she wasn't a star but a ship that had been missing for the past hundred years...
People whispered that the ship has now belonged to a witch. A witch that will kill you and eat your heart and hide your body inside her cursed ship.
The ship came everyday, much to the chagrin of the town people. People always knew when she will appear. Witches, pah, people spat, always one for glamour and glory. How dare she, both the grieving old and spiteful youth cried, pull up her ship, making it cut through the ominous fog like it was a saviour rather than a punishment. Like the ship will take them away from the mundane town rather than steal them from their families, their lives.
It was not like the kingdom didn't try to fight the witch back, send her to whatever hell she came from. For months, when the ship first appeared, soldiers came down to Hope town and opened fire on the ship every single day. However, the ship never stopped killing; the men that went too close to it disappeared after the mist subsides.
The ship doesn't take its victims by force. There are always a grieving wife, who lost her husband to the seas or an elderly, who had learned to succumb to loneliness, until their bones creaked heavy with pain of being left behind and they decided that they'd rather be eaten by a haunted ship than to live. Sometimes, after the cries and wails of church women echoes through the town, one could see a husband who lost his wife to childbirth went near to the mist, only to never be seen ever, again.
Vicious sailors spat and jeered at this. Such cowards, they jestered. Jumping to your death, only because of sentimentality? How stupid, how stupid. A widow will still be deemed enough to be claimed by a man. At least remember that you have children to feed, mother! They sang. The old men and women who surrendered towards death, how cowardly you are! You fought to live that far and you throw it away like your life was glass! And the men! Ridiculous! Dead wives could be replaced. Motherless children need not suffer more by losing their fathers!
The barmaid and ladies that frequented the bar will hiss and whisper. How dare the men! How can you speak of such things? You speak as if your words could pave the world. When you're in the jaws of Grief, it is possible that only Death could save you. One woman argued that rather than a monster, Grief is like a quicksand pit. It seems innocuous. Harmless to those who never stepped in it. When you're inside, however, you are dead, only left there either to fight for your chance to live or to let the pit of Grief eat you alive.
Yes, the women said, the witch is a cruel woman. How dare she eat humans, like we are not worthy, but at the same time, deep in their hearts, they praised the witch — to be able to have a heart that could withstand all the grief of the people her ship had eaten.
Now, children are told not to stand too close to the sea. Make sure your feet are far away enough from the ocean, mothers reminded. Far away from the mist, far away from the ship, far far away from the witch. Men now knew not to go upshore and fish when the mist began to roll in. Women of families that lived by the sea now know enough not to dry their fishes and meat or collect salt so close where the witch could reach them. As years passed, people learned to live alongside the Ship.
Such is the story of the Ship and her Witch, the house-owner told me, as she passed me a key to my house. Remember, boy, she told me sternly. Never you dare go close enough to the sea.
© starchaser
The loud, hollow siren of the ship's horn jolted the sleepy, port town.
She emerged out of the swirling mist like a star making a grand entrance. Only she wasn't a star but a ship that had been missing for the past hundred years...
People whispered that the ship has now belonged to a witch. A witch that will kill you and eat your heart and hide your body inside her cursed ship.
The ship came everyday, much to the chagrin of the town people. People always knew when she will appear. Witches, pah, people spat, always one for glamour and glory. How dare she, both the grieving old and spiteful youth cried, pull up her ship, making it cut through the ominous fog like it was a saviour rather than a punishment. Like the ship will take them away from the mundane town rather than steal them from their families, their lives.
It was not like the kingdom didn't try to fight the witch back, send her to whatever hell she came from. For months, when the ship first appeared, soldiers came down to Hope town and opened fire on the ship every single day. However, the ship never stopped killing; the men that went too close to it disappeared after the mist subsides.
The ship doesn't take its victims by force. There are always a grieving wife, who lost her husband to the seas or an elderly, who had learned to succumb to loneliness, until their bones creaked heavy with pain of being left behind and they decided that they'd rather be eaten by a haunted ship than to live. Sometimes, after the cries and wails of church women echoes through the town, one could see a husband who lost his wife to childbirth went near to the mist, only to never be seen ever, again.
Vicious sailors spat and jeered at this. Such cowards, they jestered. Jumping to your death, only because of sentimentality? How stupid, how stupid. A widow will still be deemed enough to be claimed by a man. At least remember that you have children to feed, mother! They sang. The old men and women who surrendered towards death, how cowardly you are! You fought to live that far and you throw it away like your life was glass! And the men! Ridiculous! Dead wives could be replaced. Motherless children need not suffer more by losing their fathers!
The barmaid and ladies that frequented the bar will hiss and whisper. How dare the men! How can you speak of such things? You speak as if your words could pave the world. When you're in the jaws of Grief, it is possible that only Death could save you. One woman argued that rather than a monster, Grief is like a quicksand pit. It seems innocuous. Harmless to those who never stepped in it. When you're inside, however, you are dead, only left there either to fight for your chance to live or to let the pit of Grief eat you alive.
Yes, the women said, the witch is a cruel woman. How dare she eat humans, like we are not worthy, but at the same time, deep in their hearts, they praised the witch — to be able to have a heart that could withstand all the grief of the people her ship had eaten.
Now, children are told not to stand too close to the sea. Make sure your feet are far away enough from the ocean, mothers reminded. Far away from the mist, far away from the ship, far far away from the witch. Men now knew not to go upshore and fish when the mist began to roll in. Women of families that lived by the sea now know enough not to dry their fishes and meat or collect salt so close where the witch could reach them. As years passed, people learned to live alongside the Ship.
Such is the story of the Ship and her Witch, the house-owner told me, as she passed me a key to my house. Remember, boy, she told me sternly. Never you dare go close enough to the sea.
© starchaser
