FireSweet

Dreaded Standard

A member of Mají-jalio’s crew, correction, Captain Mají-jalio’s crew: day one.  I knew that as I shook his hand that my name would go down in history.  The first member he had brought on in five years, the first to make a name for myself in a day, and the first female member to look to the black and red flag.  I smiled, more to myself than to my captain, and looked him in the eye.  “Thank you, Captain,” I said, “it will be an honor to serve under you.” 

            He laughed, “There are a few formalities we have to attend to first, recognizing you as one of us.  People will not believe that you made it into the crew, you need proof of my claim to you.”

            He turned away from me and walked over to a chest in the corner.  He opened it and took out a mid-sized wooden box.  It was full of cloth strips of various colors.  He set it on his desk, motioning me to join him.  I walked around it and looked a little closer.  Many of the strips were either a bright crimson or a deep black color, but there were strips of every male-ish color imaginable, and this was only the surface.

My captain continued talking, “These are proof of my claim, you may choose three strips for each of your hands.  One must be crimson, one black, and the third color is your own personal choice.  Do not worry about being a double of a color, because every color in here that is not either of my colors is unique.  When you bind your hands, do what you wish, but all three colors must be visible.  Also, wrapping the cloth between your fingers does not work very well so you may as well forget that idea.  Feel free to grab a few extra strips if you want to cover up that tattoo of yours.  You won’t want to be wearing long sleeves in this summer weather; the cloth will hide whatever you wish to remain hidden.  Come out on deck when you are presentable, I need to introduce you to the full crew. “

            He strode out of the cabin dismissively, scattering the eavesdropping crew members from outside of the door with the flat of his sword.  I was left to my thoughts and the decision of my identity.  I already had my required stripes out of the box.  I needed a personal color.  I wanted something that would make a statement would describe me in one strip of cloth.  All of the colors near the top were greens, blues, and grays, typical colors for typical pirate guys.  As I dug deeper in the box the colors became brighter, I was beginning to see yellows and purple mixed in with the bright blue colors.  As my fingers scraped against the bottom of the box I found a new color, pink. 

Now on any other day I despise the color pink.  Pink dresses, pink ribbons, pink crayons, pink frosting, pink wallpaper, the sight of the color sickened me.  It’s far too feminine for someone as rough-and-tumble as I’ve always been.  I had gotten in trouble more than once in grade school for refusing to complete the color-by-number pictures that used the color pink.  Max had been there for those times, called down from his upper level classrooms to talk some sense into me.  To my delight he would refuse, stating simply that nothing on this world could convince me to touch the color and that he would not force me into conformity.  We had been close like that once.  I knew that he didn’t mind the color pink, but that he had never liked dressing up any more than I ever had.  We would rebel together, me wearing shorts beneath the dress I was forced into and he wearing his tie more like a necklace than a collar.  He had brought me to parties when we were a little older, showing me when I was only 12 that I couldn’t hold my liquor.  He probably wasn’t the best influence, but he was mine… or used to be.

I shook my head violently to clear away the tears of memory that threatened to spill down my face.  He wasn’t Max anymore, not to me, now he was Red.  Red was not my brother.  I looked down at the bottom of the box of colors to focus on the task at hand, at the various pinks that seemed to call out to me for the first time in my life.  It only made sense, right?  That in a male-oriented world I would choose a symbol of feminism to be my standard of power and change.   I needed that girly color to pack a punch in the pirate world.  I kept digging through the box, looking through the different pink colors.  A pale pink was still not even a notion to entertain, I would need something bolder.  At the very bottom of the box - in a typical cliché manner - was my perfect color.  A vivid hot pink that was deep and rich, the color only created with powerful dyes, not to be found anywhere in the natural world.  It would draw eyes and command attention; this was going to be me.