The story is the lead-up to a new member of our D&D group joining the party. The titular character, Jake, was the player's first character. As is often the case with first characters, Jake is less "inspired" and more "inspired by," in a way that should be thoroughly transparent by the end of the piece.
Jake and the Barrel
Jake awoke, as he usually did, to the scent of rum and urine. Many times before, his life had seen him roused in a haystack or pigsty in the general proximity of a tavern, and so this normally wouldn’t bother him. However, there was a long list of things that made this particular awakening different.
For one thing, he was completely in the dark. Usually when he awoke this was purely metaphorical, the kind of darkness caused by a large hollow where memory should be, but today there was also the more tangible darkness caused by the absence of light. Though he had no memory of where he was or how he got here, the well-known aromas he marinated in ensured he remained calm; whatever was happening, it was probably routine. He’d be fine once he remembered it.
Jake could hear the ocean. It seemed a great deal closer than usual. Jake felt this was uncharacteristic of the ocean, and was determined to find out why.
He tried to untangle himself, and hit his head on something hard. He wondered briefly what it had been. After hitting his head three more times, Jake realised he was completely enclosed in something wooden. He was on his ship, then? No… no he remembered his ship being several orders of magnitude larger than this. So, where was he?
His brain dredged through the quicksand of inebriation in a valiant attempt to recall all the wooden things he knew. After several long minutes, his mind brought him the word “barrel.”
A barrel… The space was barrel-shaped, and it was wooden, which was another thing that made it like a barrel. Yes, barrel seemed right. Jake cheered up somewhat. He liked barrels. They were robust and dependable, and usually contained essential items like tar, water, and rum. It was also a fun word to say. “Barrel.”
Jake had successfully figured out what he was in. Encouraged by this victory, he undertook the task of remembering why he was in it. His mind rushed after the information like a bloodhound with polio.
Jake recovered emotion before facts. He didn’t know why, but whatever happened made him feel terribly depressed. He felt not sadness, but horrible despair, the kind that fills your lungs and empties your stomach. The kind of despair that makes the whole world feel like a yawning void; a place where, if hope were light, there would be nothing but absolute, infinite darkness.
Jake decided to stop thinking about that.
Jake instead turned his thoughts to his current problems. This was an improvement, as it only filled Jake with mild hopelessness.
Not many people realise how vast the ocean is, except those who spend their lives there. Jake was, unfortunately, one of those people, and knew exactly how vast the ocean is. Well, no one knows exactly how vast the ocean is, as it is far, far too vast. But Jake knew that, which is an unwelcome knowledge as you float atop the ocean’s huge, crushing vastness.
Jake pictured his little barrel, bobbing up and down in the middle of a blanket of ocean which, in every direction, met the curved horizon. He felt very, very alone. Pirates are not generally accustomed to feeling alone, which is perhaps why they so eagerly embrace marooning as a form of punishment.
Jake didn’t like it. There were always other people around to hit him and accuse him of stealing. Out here on the ocean, it was just him and the barrel. The barrel and Jake. Jake and the barrel.
Jake started to think of the barrel as his friend.
This is, of course, ridiculous. One struggles to think of an object less animate than a barrel short of rocks, and even fancy rocks can at least sparkle. Barrels are receptacles, and like most receptacles, barrels have no meaning without something to recept. A barrel, like a suitcase or a coffin, is only as good as what you put in it. Its meaning and purpose is exactly that of what it contains. This is an inherent truth of barrels, and though most people don’t think much about it, they all know it subconsciously. Right now, this barrel contained Jake. The pirate found the barrel instantly likeable.
Jake felt like he should say something to his newly forged companion.
“Hello barrel,” he mustered.
The barrel did not respond.
Jake decided to try again. “How are you today, barrel?”
The barrel remained silent.
Jake could tell that the barrel was not in a talking mood. “Well, I can see you’re busy...”
The barrel maintained its stoic reticence.
“Carry on, then.”
Jake sought for something else to occupy him. He decided he should be familiar with his surroundings. He first tried to look around the barrel, but this was difficult. The thankful water-tightness of his opaque prison also rendered it light-tight. His sense of smell was currently tasked to capacity, so he engaged touch. After a few short seconds, he was delighted to discover that the barrel also played host to a large number of rum bottles.
Jake immediately uncorked the first one he got his hand around, and took a hearty swig. A harsh taste struck Jake’s tongue like burning sewage. Jake realised that, rather than the familiar taste of rum, his tongue was awash with the less (but still decidedly too) familiar taste of his own urine.
This didn’t seem right. He weighed the bottle in his hand. It was definitely a rum bottle; logic dictated that it should be filled with rum. Jake determined that this must be the case. He had spent a very long, very drunk time inside the barrel, and his clothes had become predictably soaked. Perhaps his nose was just playing tricks on his tongue.
When Jake was a third of the way through the bottle, he had to concede that it was mostly filled with urine. It had taken him longer to figure out because the bottle hadn’t been completely devoid of rum when he had topped it up.
Jake was horrified; he had been really hoping to become drunk. Not a single bottle in there with him wasn’t some kind of organic cocktail. If Jake wanted rum, he’d be forced to also ingest a considerable dose of ex-rum.
Jake thought long and hard about this.
“Well, it can’t be that bad,” he rationalised, “it was in me before it came out of me.” Confident in this reasoning, he took another swig. Before long, he was consuming the fluid quite steadily. It didn’t taste that bad, once you got used to how bad it tasted.
He started calling the liquid Jake Juice.
As the ethanol and ammonia seeped into his spongy brain, Jake began to feel better about everything. The yawning black void of despair blurred until it was more a muddy smear of despair. His mind quickly put it out of itself, and was only occupied with present matters, primarily his inevitable death. It turned out he was feeling better about that as well.
Of course, he didn’t like the idea of dying at sea, but if he had to die there were worse places to go about doing it. Besides, he might not have to wait for something as lengthy and dull as starvation; there might be a storm, or some kind of brutal shark attack. Jake hoped for a storm; being claimed by the sea seemed a lot more exciting than just dying on top of it.
Jake settled back to await his storm. He didn’t think he’d have to wait very long; with the self-opinion common to pirates, he was confident that the gods paid very close attention to his life. It wouldn’t be hard for them to find one or two dozen reasons for unleashing some Wrath, and this made a storm pretty much guaranteed. Jake felt positively cheery. He laid back, and took another swig of Jake Juice.
Suddenly there was a loud thump, the barrel jerked violently. The bottle he’d been drinking from slammed into his teeth, and deposited the contents, quite thoroughly, into the back of his throat. Something had hit them; something large.
“What the hell was that?” Jake sputtered.
The barrel couldn’t even begin to explain.
The jolt had caused his head to slam against wood, and the not-so-mild concussion augmented the effects of the not-so-mild drunkenness and dehydration, resulting in a very, very disoriented pirate. Jake barely registered the barrel had been lifted from the ocean until it slammed down hard on something wooden. Even in his state, he knew the sound of a loaded barrel striking the deck of a ship.
The lid of the barrel was torn away, and Jake spilled onto the hard deck. The midday sun was blinding. Lying on his back, he made out a large silhouette as it leaned over him.
“You awrigh’ mate?”
Jake decide to make a good first impression.
“Yeeargh,” he mustered, and promptly lost consciousness. Later, as he thought back, he was quite proud he managed it.
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