But that is where he was wrong. For so often, when a person encounters a chance to live as they truly are, it feels so grand, so colossal, they chalk it up to delusion when it is nothing more than an open door. This door invites them to walk through, and rather than leading outward, it leads inward, toward a knowledge of oneself that was once only accessible in daydreams.
The immense beauty of such an invitation to greatness, to adventure, to a possible destiny even, is far too often dismissed as folly. It is far too often ignored. Far too often put off until the next life.
But no one can deny themselves forever.
As Zander walked back through the dense jungle that would lead him home, he thought about the pirate woman he’d met among those very trees only minutes earlier.
An entire lifetime had passed in the last few minutes.
He was walking home when he saw her. Eating chicken, of all things.
He’d woken up that morning in a strange mood. He had no desire, no motivation to indulge in his regular routine. It was rather dull to be honest, and not at all what he would have chosen for himself, if he had a choice.
Of course, one always has a choice, but it is very seldom that a choice is an easy one. Nevertheless, he played his role in life faithfully. Born in England as a tanner’s son, he’d come to Barbados on a whim with only his tools and his father’s training. He’d worked hard to earn a place in this new land. In fact, he’d done little else but work for a very long time. Today however, he wished to pretend he was someone else.
So, he sat on his back porch, watching the birds and bugs fly by. At some point, he dozed off in the midmorning sun. When he woke up, his stomach was growling, and he resolved to eat lunch in the nearby village before returning to his work. In fact, he’d probably work into the night to make up for the spontaneous break. He was not used to his hands being idle.
He ended up taking his lunch to go. He was walking the long way home when she broke through the tree line, bleeding and out of breath.
Her sudden presence in the small clearing hit him like a wall of cold water, waking him from a deep sleep.
Her hair was adorned with beads and feathers, as well as a few leaves and sticks borrowed from the surrounding jungle. She wore a red vest over a white shirt and tan linen pants. Her brown skin glistened with sweat, and her golden eyes shone with excitement. If he had not already suspected she was a pirate from her manner of dress, the curved blade at her hip, a sun carved into its ivory handle, would have confirmed it.
You see, Z was born just after what is often referred to as the “golden age” of piracy. The most sensational of pirates were swiftly becoming legend, and Zander was no stranger to tales of swashbucklers and marauders on the high seas. And though swashbuckling piracy was less common than it once was, there was still plenty of adventure to be had for those willing to look for it.
Today, it seemed, adventure found him.
For several moments they stood looking at each other, he and this strange pirate woman. Zander thought he felt a spark of recognition pass between them. Then the men chasing her broke through the tree line and mistook them for a pair. Before he knew it, his hand was in hers, and she was pulling him through the trees toward safety.
The next few minutes were, by far, the most exciting few minutes of his 26 years of life.
Trained in the family trade of leather tanning from a young age, the most daring risk Zander had ever taken was when he joined a ship leaving his home country of England to come to here, to this island, where he’d ended up living a life so similar to the one he left back home it made him miserable to even think about it. And even that wasn’t so much of a risk as it was an escape.
He’d seen his life looming before him, so eerily like the life of his father, and felt suffocated by it. He’d had no idea what awaited him in Barbados when he boarded that ship. In fact, he couldn’t have pointed to the island on a map if he was asked to. He was like a rabbit with a dog at its heels, his thoughts fixed on what lay behind him as that ship left shore, not on what lay ahead. So, when his feet touched the earth again, they hadn’t the notion to seek adventure. They sought a roof, space to work, and customers. It was the same life with a different view, albeit far from the stifling expectations of his family.
Of course, he’d dreamed of adventure. Ever since he was a little boy, he’d imagined himself as the main character in some grand tale of love and danger. The hero, the rescuer, the one who gets the girl. But those were just ideas. He’d never truly understood what such a life would feel like until a strange and beautiful pirate woman put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him goodbye.
Then she ran through the trees and left him behind.
He longed to go with her. He protested when she said she had to leave, which made him feel quite vulnerable, but it also got him a kiss. And for such a kiss as the one she gave him, he considered his pride an even exchange.
He thought of what she said just before she kissed him goodbye.
Unless you’re trying to run away—permanently—you aren’t coming with me.
“Well, what if I am trying to run away?” he said to himself now, though in his heart he knew he’d be running toward something for the first time in his life. “That’s sort of like an invitation, isn’t it?”
He continued to argue with himself even as he sauntered farther away from the beach. Surely, the notion of chasing down a pirate ship was ridiculous. But with every step he took away from the mysterious woman and her pirate ship, a sinking dread filled his body. With every footfall back toward his tiny house and its assortment of scraping and tanning tools, the vividness of the pirate woman’s golden eyes increased in his mind until he could barely see the dense foliage in front of him.
It didn’t take long until his body rebelled against his instincts, and a rush of vigor and determination he didn’t recognize as his own filled his chest as his soul let out a final, desperate cry:
STOP!
Zander turned and ran back toward the water, never slowing enough to let his anxious mind steer him away from his decision. He hit the water running, and once he was far enough out, he dove. He was a strong swimmer, so making it to the ship wasn’t what worried at his gut as he swam. It was whether the pirates currently onboard would let him live long enough to explain himself.
Halfway there, he heard a yell.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
He looked up momentarily to see his mystery woman leaning over the edge of the ship. The sight of her filled him with renewed energy. He paused only long enough to answer.
“I’m coming with you!” he tried to yell, but half his words were swallowed by the sea as he clumsily tread water. “I’m coming! Wait for me!”
He started to swim again, his arms beginning to tire. Mercifully, he came upon a life buoy—a bit of cork tied with rope—and was hauled the rest of the way.
When he finally pulled himself onto the deck of the ship, his breath came in short bursts. He took only a moment to compose himself before he looked up, his eyes locking with the woman he met on shore.
She was kneeling in front of him, a look of surprise and appreciation on her face. Her long, tight curls stuck to her damp shoulders, tendrils plastered above her wide brow like a coronet.
“You are crazy,” she said to him. But there was a smile in her voice that put him at ease.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He wasn’t.
“I tried to go home,” he continued. “But… I just had this awful feeling about walking away from you. Like I was walking toward nothing… and away from everything.”
The dimples on her cheeks deepened as her full lips turned up in a wide smile, and he relaxed further.
