Message With a Bottle...of Liquid Courage.

We are nothing more than a pack of panicked shipmates, trying to avoid bursts of agony and fire as the ship, and world beneath slowly cascade into cold depths of self-confrontation. Scurried Captains and deckhands alike bicker, reckless shrills disregard orders as they collide into one another, aimlessly stumbling to the ground before frantic legs spring up and ricochet with blind intent into splintered boards and broken rails.

No man has the time or decency to ask "why" the ship is sinking, each man wades through the mess, and through the tangles of human, so caught-up in their struggling instinct to survive, most ignore the fact that it is not them, but the wooden ship they stand upon that will soon plummet asunder.

Fingers point in the cabin amongst high-ranks as lowly crew members brawl and tear one another to pieces, toppling back and forth as expensive paintings and candles crash from walls as the unstable ground they stand upon slopes and rocks, it's safety guaranteed for a moment, right before it drop from beneath and points downward into a new direction.

Flowing through the chaos is Tommy Two-Bit, a local drunkard whom' convinced the Captain he belonged on the ship and would no doubt help the voyage. Two-Bit's familiar discombobulated slinks across the deck were now well-trained steps, as each unstable board lifted beneath his feet, turning each slurred toe into a perfectly laid tow, as if he'd practiced the steps his entire life. As others fall to the splintered boards and feel hope slip away, Two-Bit gargles the last bit of whiskey before he willingly splashes into the dark water, his gangly limbs propel him into the night without a quiver or squall.

Flails and grasps for safety gradually move Two-Bit further until a loose grip on looser soot and muck pulls his knees into small rocks. From the far, Two-Bit watches flames and the desperate dumb-asses finally extinguish in the distance. Two-Bit shakes his head in a quick moment of sadness, then frantically searches his own body with shaking hands before a wide grin stretches beyond his cheeks. His smile is quickly retracted as lips cling to a bottle pulled from his jacket pocket.

For hours Two-Bit waited, waiting for another survivor to wash ashore as he stayed warm from within, drowning in brown liquid, and punishing his own tongue. Roars and wild things rustled in the jungle behind Two-Bit, deeps screams and terrors of the unknown devoured one another as he gazed deep into the wisdom of a translucent bottle. With a shrug and a slurp Two-Bit wandered into the wild, as tone-deaf songs rang into the unseen and reminded him of times better remembered.