The pirate captain had rum on his breath and blood in his eyes. He came swinging at Mr. V like a moody tiger escaped from a zoo, desperate yet playful; hungry for a carcass to sink his teeth into, but willing to let his prey get a few blows in before closing his jaws the final time.

They walked through the market, where multicolored cloths hung on rude frames, where merchants sat beneath and behind their sacks of rice and beans, tuna as long as full grown men hung by their tails, piles of prawns and clams roasted in the full day’s sun, where women cooking flatbread called out their wares to passing caravans of pirates driving ragged VW vans, rifle clutching children standing on their bumpers, waving to the skinny girls in hijabs made with cloth so brightly colored and striped that their eyes looked to be peeking out between candy canes. Any other time the market was a whirlwind of dangerous intensity. But today it was abandoned, wind-filled, empty, distant motor sounds echoing through.

None of them were real pirates, just hangers on: waiting, hoping someday to win a spot on one of the boats. To be one of the real pirates, risking your life on seas, winning glory and the fantastic money that came with it. There were so many of them, though. Some would make it, and then would die when the boats capsized, when the sharks got hungry. Most wouldn’t, they would die waiting.