Right now, I’m standing on the front of my old-timey pirate ship, dictating what I’m doing to my scribe, who is writing it down and putting it on the internet. That might sound ridiculous, but I have been reading a lot of novels set in the present tense lately, and I wanted to write my own story that way. Of course, I need my story to be authentic, which means it has to be written down as it happens.
My scribe looks at me funny, realising why I am getting him to write down everything that I say to him. “Get back to work and stop looking at me like that.” I tell him to get back to work and stop looking at me like that, and I hope that he puts what I just said to him in quotation marks. He says that he did, which means he is doing a good job.
Anyway, currently, my ship is headed toward Melbourne, so that I can pick up some fancy new cross earrings. I’ve been invited to a special summit, hosted by some guy who goes by the name John Sparrow on the internet. He’s contacted a bunch of us modern-day pirates and invited us to come and test his new magical earrings. Personally, I’m pretty excited about this. I look forward to trying these earrings, feeling nice and fancy.
As my ship approaches the shores of the Port Phillip Bay, I prepare to leap over the side and onto the sand. Sure, I could lower the gangplank and walk off my ship, but that wouldn’t be cool. As I jump down to the beach, I can’t help but hope that these will be the best earrings in the Melbourne CBD. Once I’m wearing them, I’ll definitely be taking a photo for my social media page. When people see that I have such cool magical earrings, they will be desperate to join my pirate crew just to get a look at them in person.
I hit the sand harder than expected, but am up in an instant, looking back at my scribe and telling him to get up and write faster. Then I am off, toward the Melbourne jeweller that invited me here in the first place.
– Mel Goldenpatch