The Ophir by Irene Patino Page B

the Bermuda Triangle people so loved to be
entertained with late at night.
    At other times, cloaked in invisibility to
the more mature and those that lacked imagination, the pirates
would row the children in a skiff to a nearby yacht. They would
instruct the children to scream for help. Once sighted, the
passengers and crew would scramble to the aid of the babes.
    “Drop the ladder, Mr. Theus. Pull her
in.”
    “Aye, Capn.”
    “Use the pike to hook her in and bring the
passengers to me.”
    The Memories wiped from the mind of the
children made it impossible to tie ends together. By the time the
crew went to secure the dingy to the yacht, it would have “drifted”
too far from them to get a line on it. It would be left to float away with the lamia aboard. As soon as the ripples
could no longer be seen from their dipping oars, the pirates rowed
back to their private island of fantasy.
    When questioned, the children, in all
innocence, would tell them the truth about the pirates that rowed
them toward their ship. Believing them to be hallucinating and
confused, they would be treated with kindness and then taken to the
nearest port authority where more questions would be asked.
    At times, the rescuers themselves would be
accused and arrested for crimes on the seas, to which they carried
no blame but gave no logical explanation.
    “Come man, do you expect me to believe that
these children appeared by some kind of magic? I’ll ask you once
more, sir, where are the parents?”
    “Sir, I don’t know, sir.”
    “How did this infant board your ship? She
can’t be more than three years old.”
    “I swear to you, we pulled her up in the net
along with the other three.”
    “Like fish? Why weren’t they wet? Where did
they come from?”
    The lamia responsible for the safe delivery
of the children slapped his knee in silent laughter.
    The vampires stood aside after each delivery;
they watched the expressions go from incredulity to exasperation to
frustration and rage.
    Ancient pirates are easily amused. It didn’t
take much to keep them entertained as they listened to stories that
would soon become myths.
    “We were fishing off the trench. Suddenly
everything went kitty waddle, and ...”
    “Kitty waddle? What in the name of heaven do
you mean by kitty waddle?”
    “Crazy, all over the place. It was the
strangest thing I’d ever seen. The sky turned all different colors.
The ocean went still, smooth as glass. A fog rolled in and there in
the middle of the fog was a boulder. The children were huddled in
the middle of it. At first I thought I was seein’ things. I wiped
my eyes and looked again, but they were still there.”
    Over the years, the pirates managed to build
a better platform on which to develop communication skills as well
as theatrical ones. The ships that were confiscated from the
average man were scuttled at the center of a triangle formed by
three of Antonio’s fleet.
    The ships formed scaffolding for more ships
as they fell toward the bottom of the ocean. The mound grew over
time, until it towered above the cordon of decaying ships that
formed the triangle. The occasional yacht was often taken as their
own, and all goods were transferred.
    Disappearances and anomalies would continue
throughout the ages. More reports would be filed on missing boats,
ships and airplanes when the time of man took to the air, but I
would no longer care by then.
    * * * *
    The Ophir and her crew disembarked at the
island now and again. I watched and recorded as best I could the
annals for future reference. It was fast becoming more and more
difficult to hold pencil or pen to paper. With no flesh upon my
bones, the writing utensils slipped too easily from my grip.
Betwixt and between those moments, I mused as best I could with
decreasing mental acuity, to consider my life past, present and
future.
    My past had been busy, quiet for the most
part with a measure of respect from others due to my position with
my master Joseph Ben