Ryan

My father is a carpenter (not named Joseph) who tought me how to build a ship and how to sail. As a lad we travelled to exotic ports in the Caribbean, Pacific and Indian Oceans where we met with great adventure. The perils of smuggling contraband provided for an interesting childhood - no blacktop basketball in the school yard, or creamsicles and corndogs with your lunch plan. Fish, turtle, canned beans and corn, the odd sea bird too daft to avoid our slings - that was our fare. Constantly vigilant for corsairs and interceptors patrolling coastal waters - a threat to our livelihood, we became pirates! Our rewards were many, for my father it was a life without oppression - far different from his days in the Ghettoes of Brazil, a young dutchman with no money, no future. No, this was freedom of a different sort, just ourselves and the the weather - waves and wind, currents and tides, sun and stars. But it was not easy - we toiled, our bones baked, our skin pickled, our brains bashed by rough swell. Was it worth it? Perhaps, how can one know until one tries? Life guarantees only one thing - death, and so we lived. Fugitives, criminals, our faces obscured by beards and caps - lest someone recognize our salty smiles. Ahh but those days are gone - a lifetime of memories resting in the depths. Now we are slaves. Tied to this heavy continent, rooted in its soil. The breeze is hot - but carries not the sea, the sand is fine - but no waves lap upon it. Now this desert is my home, the only semblance of my former life that it holds: I am always thirsty.