To Be a Pirate

Part One: The Kid's Spark

Beyond the cracked sidewalk, and the telephone pole with layers of flyers in a rainbow of colors, and the patch of dry brown grass there stood a ten-foot high concrete block wall, caked with dozens of coats of paint. One word of graffiti filled the wall, red letters on a gold background: Rejoice!

A couple walked by the wall. The old man glanced at the word. He let out an exhale of disgust.
" What is it?" Asked his wife.

" I don't get why these pirate folk think it's okay to slander the public walls with their business!" The old man said. The wife thought for a moment, looking at the colorful wall.
" Oh, I dunno. Maybe they feel as if they can't use normal news sources to pass down their ideas and announcements?" She said.

" Still ruining our good town. We don't need to be like those other islands and their ravenous ways." The old man said. He pulled his wife along and they continued pass the wall. A bicycle was a few feet behind them. The kid manning it raced along. The air breezed by his yellow hair. His orange eyes elated with the sensation of speed. He slowed down to a stop next to the wall. Breathing heavily he uncapped his water bottle and drank. Putting it back in the holder of his bike, he noticed the word on the wall. He thought about it for a moment. Rejoice, in such crude writing. Only one group of people could've placed it there. If he was correct, then he'd know exactly where to find them, and his day was going to get a lot more interesting. He quickly rode off down the street. Blazing past the old couple and turning onto another street, the boy made his way to an abandoned manufacturing house.

A few people came by here, but only for a moment. This building was once used for cars, but has since been left to rot as the company who owned it moved to a different island for better finances. A place perfect for secret pirate meetings. As the boy rode up to its desolate parking lot, he saw two folks entering through a back door. Their clothes were torn, and they had leather tunics and belts. The door shut. He knew from that short sight that this was it. Excitement forming in him, he locked his bike on the side of the building and got off. The boy looked around nervously. He wanted to make sure no one would see him.

If he was honest with himself, not many people would care if they did see him entering this place. As most of the people who lived here on island of Lenore were Normie. Meaning they lived simpler lives, and followed the government's laws. They didn't cause any harm, usually. But the boy knew that inside of this very building, there were the other kind of people in this world. The Pirates. Men and women who despised the government's laws and wished to live on their own accord. There were just as many pirates as normies, if you were to consider every island in the world. On Lenore, not too many pirates showed their faces. The boy always guessed it was because Lenore didn't have too much treasure to share. Simple buildings, simple cars, simple people with simple living environments. Nothing a true pirate would be interested in. That was why the boy didn't like living here. Ignore that his parents always worked, and therefore the boy was left alone all too often. But he also had done too much deep diving of the internet. This boy knew what a pirate was, and knew how life could be for him if he could just be one himself.

Feeling sure no one was watching, the boy opened the door, and slipped in. It was dark inside of the old car factory and it was dimly lit, as to make sure it didn't draw attention to itself. This was an illegal meeting. The boy carefully walked past a decrepit waiting room, with a decaying office desk and a door to a backroom missing. He went down ripped up gray halls. The connecting rooms scattered with papers and fallen photos. Anything left here for this long couldn't be salvaged. After some minutes the boy heard talking, and chairs moving. His ears perked up, and went towards the noise. Through a set of double steel doors, came the main constructure room. Over head various assembly lines lead to a pinnacle point at the other end of the room. The gears were fried and left over car pieces were still lying on the lines. The boy was almost afraid one would fall on him. But that was no matter, as the real interest was right in front of him.