Gaargh, as I sit here with a pot o’ crude coral rum and me peg leg restin’ on the table behind me, I’m minded to recall a day most dear to me black and twisted heart. The sun were bright in the sky, silhouetting them gulls what wheeled overhead. The sound o’ me playmates laughter were on the breeze, along with the endless clack o’ buttons in their bins. Twas just one more idyllic day at the Merciful Monks’ Manufactory Orphanage.
I’d been left there as a mere babe, with all me limbs, wrapped up in a pirate’s hat. I’d only just mastered the sewing o’ buttons onto ladies unmentionables, but in time I’d be skilled enough to stitch boots of high fashion for gentlemen. The sunny day were barely visible through ye high windows, but ye summery atmosphere were suddenly split by a tremendous thunderin’. No, twas not the portly lad chained to me left, for smoke were rising outside and the walls shook more than were common.
Midst the screaming and the sharp tang o’ something I’d one day know as gunpowder there came a hammering at the door to our workshop. The doors flew inwards. A man stood between ‘em, wreathed in smoke with pistols in both of his fists. His beard were tassled with the skulls o’ mice and sea beasties and his eyes had a glaze o’ madness upon ‘em.
Gaargh, twas the first time I’d ever laid eyes upon me father, Captain Abraham Seaflange. He made an impression I can tell ye. His eyes fell upon me, which explained the glaze. As he pawed the ground hopelessly his hands fell heavily upon my fine pirate hat which dwarfed my child-like head (tis true, as a child I had the head of a child).
With a roar, Seaflange seized me up and ran blindly through the workshop. He was strong in head and hand; he used ‘em both to smash his way out, towing me behind him like a dinghy. After some time and with the aid of me youthful sight he took me aboard his ship, The Vision of Ugliness.
He’d heard tell of me birth and subsequent vendin’ to the merciless manufacturing monks, but could not bear the thought of his blood engaged in such drudgery. Me heart swelled with belonging and warmth, not least on account of ye rum the Captain had tipped into me to dull me squallin’. He was to teach me all I know about piracy, but first we had to escape the monks’ blockade.
Twere the monks’ last desperate effort to prevent me father leaving with their best button stitcher, the bulk o’ their wealth and box o’ ladies fancy goods (me father’s a mean multi-taskin’ captain). They’d piled ye orphans into boats and punted ‘em into the harbour’s mouth. Aaarr, they’d misjudged me piratical papa who ploughed through their plaintive cries, dashing the boats into shark sized smithereens.
In later years we’d lose legs together and go a-whorin’ in exotical ports but just then I were gazin’ at the mismatched buttons he’d jammed into his eye sockets and wonderin’ if he’d need ‘em stitched. Gaargh, I loves me father, the noble Captain Seaflange for he made me the pirate I am today.