Some Things Are Best Left Behind

The MV Kona was getting tossed around like a cork in a babies’ bath tub, creaking and groaning as if she was about to turn inside out. The converted freighter's hardened crew was green with the tossing and worried about the little vessel’s ability to stay afloat.

The ship's Captain was at the helm, held in place by a stout rope around his waist — this was by far the worst storm that Captain Pache Colis had guided the Kona through in his fifty years at sea. They only thing between survival and disaster for the crew and passengers of the Kona was Pache’s steady hand on the tiller.

The small ship had once been the flag of the largest coffee fleet in the world, hauling beans from every major coffee plantation, its hold filled to the brim with every variety of bean ever cultivated. So long had she plied the coffee trade that her holds still bore the faint aroma of the blended beans.

Then the blight struck, wiping out the plantations, the stocks, even the instant coffee in simple people’s pantries. Without warning there was no morning wake-up, no late night go juice, America and every other country simply stopped running. Economies crashed as coffee shops around the world closed, forcing people out of work. Baristas panhandled, offering to make tea or chicory flavored drinks for a deprived populous.

There were armed rebellions when unfounded rumors sprang up that the worlds one percent still had coffee, some nation's leaders found themselves on trial for allowing the blight to happen.

Nothing mattered, coffee was gone, never to return.

Most of the MV Kona’s sister ships were scrapped, paying pennies on the dollar in the ravaged economies that followed the Blight. The MV Kona escaped their fate when Punk Metal Rap Group Bernardina and the Catimor’s bought her to convert her into a floating concert hall, mainly to avoid paying taxes on the proceeds of their concerts.

The group's lead singer, the feisty red-headed Bernardina Arabica, known to her few friends as Bernie, but to most of the music world as Bernie the Beast, was at best a handful. Though most of the time she was an uncouth, swaggering pile of unrefined talent. So ugly was her personality that the Catimor’s often joked about tossing her overboard.

The one person Bernie the Beast couldn’t intimidate was Cap’n Pac, as the band called him, try as she might, she never was able to get over on him or under his skin — now was no different.

“We have to go back,” stamping her booted foot, “that cup was my favorite.”

“We aren’t turning back for anything Bernie,” concentrating on keeping the Kona’s bow into the wind and swells, “coming about now would likely capsize us and send us straight to the bottom.”

“It’s my boat and I say we go …”

“Ship or a Motor Vessel,” interrupting her. “And while you might be part owner, thank God you aren’t her Captain,” still calm but with anger showing clearly. “Now, off my bridge, before I summon the Master at Arms to cart you off to the brig.”

Bernie aimed a parting dagger tossing look and a spew of curses at Cap’n Pac as she stomped off the bridge. “Maybe we’ll just have to find a new ship's captain.”

Peace settled over the bridge once more, Pache at the wheel all night, steadily guiding the MV Kona through the storm. If not for his courage the little ship might have been lost.

The crew made it through safely also, with one sad exception noted in the ships log, after she left the bridge Bernie the Beast was nowhere to be found aboard the little vessel, all presumed she washed overboard during the storm.

The crew and the band held a small service for her, she was so unliked that no one offered to speak until finally the trombone player, with a twinkle in his eye and a knowing smirk said quietly, “seems like the Kona left more behind than an old coffee cup.”


Authors Note ▼

Word Count = 677

Prompts From;

"The Dreamweaver Lounge"  "Anthology Project: 1a"  

CHARACTER: Singer.
PLOT: What was left behind.
WILD CARD: Set your story during the worst storm in fifty years.

"Invalid Item" 

Awarded First Place

"The highly aggressive form of the blight that wiped out countless crops in Ireland centuries ago, has mutated and come back. Almost overnight, worldwide coffee plantations have been wiped out. What makes this blight so horrible is not only does it target coffee crops, but it also targets coffee that is stocked up in warehouses and on people's shelves."

"Newbie Contest Challenge!!" 

August's Prompt is "The Vessel"

Remember the word vessel has many different meanings, your vessel could, of course, be some type of ship, but it could also be a container or perhaps even a person.

Thank You For Reading My Story ~ This Is My First, "First Place Win" On Writing.Com ~ To Celebrate Please Steal Take This Trinket