Short Stories

Thirty-Nine

(A/N): This is an unfinished essay for a contest I never entered. Enjoy.

After finding a multitude of islands across the ocean, Christopher Columbus and my crew have finally returned to Spain. We brought back small amounts of gold and some native people that were living there. Only eight of them survived the journey, however. The natives that we had found called their island Guanahani, so I shall call them Guanahani people. They were all very fit and lean as it seemed. They had dark brown skin and even darker hair. They don't seem to wear many clothes to cover their bodies, even the women, though they don't show up much. Most of the people we saw were riddled with scars. The Guanahani people indicated that there were other islands where people tried to conquer Guanahani. The Guanahani people fought back as hard as they could, and they have seemed to have won, even though they seem to have primitive-looking weapons. We know that because we handed them an iron-cast sword, and they cut themselves on it out of ignorance. Or, perhaps curiosity. Or, maybe a strange mixture of both. Despite them not being able to recognize iron, they have gold ornaments hung on their ears. Christopher Columbus demanded to know where it came from and to lead him to the source. He didn't find any gold to say in the least. While Columbus was looking for gold, we observed the surroundings. The scenery was really quite amazing. The plants were lush and green. The trees were interesting; they only had leaves at the top with these round spherical things growing near the top. There were some beautiful plants and flowers growing there. Christopher Columbus took some detailed notes on the native plants and animals. I didn't really. After Guanahani, we sailed around and found some other islands. Nothing else was really different from the first island we arrived at. There was one island where they claimed they were bountiful in gold, but alas, none was discovered. One of the ships, the Santa María I believe, had to be abandoned as it wrecked against the shore, but we did make a spectacle of it to impress the natives.

We left some men behind, thirty-nine if I remember correctly, and took some of the natives onto our ships. There was a particular group of natives, the name I can't remember, where they were particularly aggressive due to Christopher Columbus wanting their bow and arrows. We got into a little scuffle, and one of our men got shot in the chest with an arrow. The wound has healed already though. We headed back after encountering the aggressive natives. The ship voyage back was more or less just as miserable as the one to the New World. There was still disease and rats everywhere; we all got swollen gums and most of us lost teeth, including me. The beer turned sour very quickly as did the butter. All the biscuits we were supposed to eat didn't turn to dust miraculously. The floorboards were still nasty and mildewy though none of us wore shoes, so we didn't slip on the deck. The food was hard and tough and salty as it usually was. We prayed every morning for good luck on the ship. On the voyage back to Spain, some of the natives died, only eight survived, unfortunately. They were really quite interesting people. But, that's beside the point, I went on the Niña with Christopher Columbus, and we got separated from the Pinta during a nasty storm. We braved the storm and arrived at an island. Half of us got onto the island and went to a nearby chapel to pray for thanks that we survived the storm. However, we did get imprisoned. I suspect it's because they thought we were pirates. They did let us go after a two-day standoff. Then, there was another storm that forced us to anchor at Lisbon. We stayed in Portugal for more than a week. Finally, we arrived back in Spain, and we all celebrated getting back from the "New World".