I Sense a Disturbance in the Force...

So there I was, just quietly minding my own business, when out of the blue I was ambushed by several scurvy knaves.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Imagine, ME, taken prisoner by my own kind...

It all started innocently enough (as most good tales do). I was simply walking along the beach, wind in my hair and a song in my heart. Quite unexpectedly I heard from behind me the sound of several footfalls. I was just turning when the blow fell, taking me square on the back of the head, and then a sound of laughter.

When I awoke some time later, I had been unceremoniously (or so I assume) dumped in the hold of some smelly tub.

Okay, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration... The hold was actually fairly nice. There were casks and boxes stacked in orderly rows, and in the middle was your very own Pirate Queen, trussed up from stem to stern like the proverbial Christmas Pizza... Uh, simile failure, but still... you get the idea, right?

I could hear little except the drumming of my heart. The ship swayed around me, and the back of my head ached with a deep down anguish, like a bruised heart. Before I could even register the first waves of nausea as the real pain sunk in, I heard the clunk of the trap door above me rattle, and a beam of cruelest sunlight land on my upturned face. I could see little though my discomfort except a man sized shadow descending down the ladder into the hold.

I tried for anger... I tried for fury... but all I could summon on such short notice was a vague feeling of disgruntlement and a simmering irritation.

With a thump I could feel in my entire body, but most especially in my amigdala, the scoundrel's boots landed on the floor beside my head with a resounding crash. (Then again, perhaps it simply felt like one).

Moments later the dark form was completely blocking the light as it hovered above me, and though my agony I felt a hand go around to the back of my head, lifting me somewhat as a cup was lowered to my lips.

Thirsty as I was, very little of the precious liquid ever made it to my dusty throat, and what little succeeded merely made me more nauseated.

Polite and sweet as ever, I responded to this treatment in true pirate fashion, by slugging up a mouthful and then spitting it in the general direction of my "nurse" who by the way smelled of rum, sweat, and salt air.

How did this ministering angel respond?

He laughed at me.

Seriously? Seriously?

Why does it seem as though so many of my adventures begin in just this way?

Coincidence?

I think not.