The gas giant in the sky is looking down upon the lapis blue ocean, making the water shimmer. Mr. Blue is out today in the sky. Colors seem to gain their shades back after the geyser of blood Miyamoto created. The cigarette has long burned out; it's just hanging from my lip while I lie flat on my back on a boat next to the main hatch on the deck. The boat takes on a whaling ship design; all these fucking Moby Dick allusions are getting extensive. Is "allusions" even the right word? Would it be considered a coincidence?

  I remove the butt of the long-dead cigarette from my lips and replace it with a possibly stolen pipe. I just found a bunch of pipes and got some tobacco, so I may as well start smoking flat on my back.

  These days my mind has just become consumed with the thoughts that I don’t really care anymore. Life is what I mean by the previous statement. That black and white reality reveals what type of being I really was. In that blatant inhuman execution of those three men represents that I’ve already been killed by my Moby Dick. I used to be something of a man, human… I don’t know. These days what's the point of caring about something as deadly as sympathy?

  Rolling back these sleeves of mine from both the jacket and shirt I'm wearing, I start to look upon these scars that cover the flesh of mine. Reading the play, these scars act out, just showing actions of jackassery. simpler acts of apathy-fueled violence, and the existence of a self-pitying, self-flagellating asshat of a being smoking a stolen fucking pipe. If I could turn the clocks to see myself in youth, the only action I would take would be a swift kick to the skull. That son of a bitch was as useless as a being could be. Cutting "himself," fucking Christ, at least the first time, was that of curiosity, not that of great self-pity or whatever the hell. That boy is long dead and buried in the land of the “free”.

  Fucking America.

  Conrad and Tsuki were good people; they gave me everything I needed to live: food, water, and shelter. There's the piano too, but I doubt such a thing is a matter of life or death, but who's to say? They also taught me one of the best lessons a being can learn. That love isn’t real, so stop bitching about wanting to be loved. All of humanity should learn to stop caring so bloody much about the fake thing that love is.

  What am I smoking… Well, tobacco mostly. Why is my mind so fucked up that all this shit flows through it?

  I pull myself up from lying down through a sit-up, and from the sit-up, it feels like everything has shattered within my core. How the hell have I been able to stay alive for this long? I grab my cane that was set next to me and try to get up. Having my cane next to me, standing straight up, I start to apply great force upon the object to help pull myself up. The pipe still lies within my mouth even after all the buffoonery from trying to get up. I start to walk towards the ship's banister to gain a clear view of the ocean instead of the lying-down view that I could barely get anything from.

  The air is thick with the ocean’s salt. The sun is beating down upon me, making me sweat, but not as much as I should be. All the dehydration; whenever I piss, it's like passing goddamn kidney stones. Shit, I should have brought a canteen instead of a fucking flask. May still have two eyes, two legs, and no chronic pain. I thought to myself while taking a puff from the pipe and a swig from the flask. One of these days my heart is just going to fucking implode.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Christ Almighty.

  “Don’t you ever get sick of that thing?” Celeste's voice says from beside me.

  “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. I don’t know. All I know is that I’m too hammered to know. All I know is if I stop, I’ll die, either mentally or physically.”

  "Christ, V. Lynch made some fish and a few other things.”

  “Not hungry.” If I were in a comedy, my stomach would make some sound, but nothing but the waves fills our ears.

  “Come on, V. I never wanted to bring this up, but the way you look has given me nightmares at times. I’m not joking. I remember waking up one day and finding you staring at the sky. Now that's normal for you, but I swear you had your coat off for some reason, and that image, whether real or not, has never left my mind.”

  “Cough, cough. Well, I can’t force my body to want something it doesn’t.”

  “You look worse than the people you pulled out of that cave, and as I said, we know that you puke whenever you eat. I don’t know, V. Just eat something.”

  “... How do you think Ahab has all that meat on him?"

  “What?”

  “Well, it's rather simpler. Lynch makes rather good fish.” A voice to my right side with the smell of smoke following. “It seems to have found our pipe stash," Ahab pronounced.

  “Yeah. You’re not even fat, just some meat on your bones.”

  "You're still bony. Like the kid said, it's rather nightmarish. I’ve seen plenty in my time, and I’ve seen the likes of you, and all I have to say is to come and have some fish."

  I haven’t looked at either of these two voices talking to me. I’ve just been staring at the ocean blues. Staring at the ocean, I guess that's technically true; my eye is staring at this blue abyss, but it's also staring at everything. Maybe I should be apathetic or stone-hearted at this conjunction, having these things boiling within my skull. “Man up,” a man would say. Swallow everything within you and dare not let out any barf, for such a thing is a show of great weakness… Men always make everything into such dick-measuring contests.

  The smoke from the pipe sits within my mouth. The taste of the strange tobacco was pleasant only due to the fact it was a change of pace between the booze and blood.

  Fish.

  “Fish.”

  “Yeah, fish.”

  “1999 New Year's Eve’s eve; I was as shit-faced as any other day, and I brought a fish. I pan-roasted a fish with a side of potatoes. That's the last time I remember having fish. Those are much like these. Knowing that knowing was as useless as a sloth with a handgun followed my every spanning, ever-falling life. Now knowing all of "evil," I find myself once more in the position of knowing but without the ability to do anything about the knowing. There was no blood on my hands but that of blood of my own. And no being to bother me to eat; all that stood were the bottle, the cig, and, sometimes, the blade. Eat what there is I’ll come when all is finished and see if any still stands, but tell no soul of this, for I want all who are hungry or all of those who want to eat to do so without guilt. This point goes for those who stand at both of my sides.”

  The smell of smoke starts to move from my left to my right, and the sound of two pairs of feet moving turn below to eat fish.

  The sound that fills my ears is that of the waves beating upon one another.