Commentary meme

[oneiriad]

So, I did this - after all. Anyway. Commentated version of And flights of angels, right this way, ladies and gentlemen, if it has any interest...

You know, elessil asked for this story to be commentaried, stating that she wanted to know what the hell was going on with me. I'm very sorry to disappoint her, but nothing much, really. I was in a slightly weird and occasionally depressed mood this summer, (well, just read Perhaps, that's depressing too and written what? a week before this one). Also, I had just read David Cordingly's book Life among the pirates, which is a very good book, though not exactly the work you should read if it is the fictive romance of piracy that is your favourite thing about the subject...

And flights of angels
I hate titles - having to find something short and appropriate and something that causes interest and which does not sound stupid and so on. It's hell, I tell you. Anyway, Shakespeare's always good for one :-)
by Oneiriad

They gave him a burial at sea. I posted this story over at fanfiction.net and the first review someone left, was by someone who hadn't figured out who it was about. Tell me, did I not make it obvious enough? *pets James until he stops being unhappy about being unrecognicable*

 

They did not know him well, did not know if it was what he would have wanted, but – for better or worse – the sea was their choice. He had been a man of the sea, like them and yet so very not like them. It seemed somehow appropriate.

 

There were those who thought that he should simply have been thrown overboard to feed the ever-hungry sharks – or better yet, that they should have sailed him by, left him clinging to that piece of wood. Not all who held the latter opinion did so out of malice. Surely it would have shortened his pain.

 

On the day they pulled him out of the drink Jack had been convinced that he would be fine – and oh so very, deliciously grateful later on. The Jack-saves-James-from-drowning/marooning/evil pirates/slavery/rabid eligible young ladies of Port Royal/etc.-and-they-sooner-or-later-get-around-to-the-business-of-being-together-(i.e.-shagging-and-possibly-falling-in-love) fandom cliché is actually one of my favourites - and one of Jack's too, I think. I doubt James shares our opinion. ;-) Alas, the problem was that Cordingly's book mentioned all the nasty things that could - and did - happen. And so this time (and hopefully only this time) the approach to the situation is less romantic and more harsh, more realistic - or, well, I tried to make it so. That was before the fever and the delirium, before the gangrene and the carpenter’s saw Now, that detail was straight out of David Cordingly. He wrote about how sometimes, if a ship had no surgeon, that the carpenter would sometimes be given the duty, since he already had the appropriate tools and the screams. Before the darker stains on the Pearl’s dark planks.

 

Not that any of it did any good.

 

He was never truly awake and aware – it was a blessing, of sorts. Oh, there was once, when his eyelids fluttered and his eyes flickered, and something that might have sounded like “pi…” and might have sounded like “ja…” passed his lips. It was one of the quieter moments, toward the end. Jack had hushed him, let him sip a little water and wiped the salty drops off his cheek. At that point there was little else he could do.

 

Anamaria and Gibbs helped with wrapping him in the old sail, but it was Jack who had washed him and combed his hair, Jack who had placed silver coins over those staring lumps of cold green ice – “for the ferryman, mate” random Greek mythology bit - typical me, really – and Jack who had stitched the sail closed.

 

He slipped under the waves – gone. No mermaids rising to gather a fine sailor to their bosoms, no sharp fins racing toward a feast. Simply gone.

 

Jack had required solemnity of his crew. Some had grumbled. Others had soon reminded them of how it had been before, how it might well be again – slow, choking deaths, the meticulous wrecking of living bodies. A lot of people never seems to consider the fact that Norrington's approach to dealing with piracy is nothing exceptional for the time. People were executed for almost anything. And a short drop and a sudden stop? Wouldn't that imply a relatively swift death? At least I always thought so. Back then the hangman could make an "amusing" spectacle out of a hanging, people dangling, slowly choking to death. (I had also recently read Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle - fantastic books, but they do have some bits about realistic hangings and they are not pretty) Or you could be sentenced to be burned or cut in pieces and so on. Seriously, I get a strangely merciful vibe out of Norrington's statement. Death, yes, but only death. But that's probably just me... The grumbling had stopped.

 

Jack’s handwriting was atrocious and his spelling even worse – he had never been a man of letters. My personal favourite interpretation of Jack is the sort of Jack I'm writing in "Falling..." - Jack who can not only read, but who loves it. Fluent in several languages and so on. But the theme of this piece was - if anything - realism, and, well, that Jack, as much as I love him, did not seem appropriate here. Still, he wrote one now, keeping it short, simple, to the point. After some consideration he addressed it to the Governor.

 

Governor Swann was in many ways a wise man. Again, realism - do you really think the British authorities would make a fellow as foolish as the one we meet in the movie Governor? Unless that fellow is the doting father and we never really get to see the Governor. When he told his daughter and son-in-law, when he told the officers at the fort, he simply said that he had been given a burial at sea.

Comments

[porridgebird.livejournal.com]

Wow - I don't think I've seen this fic before. Just stunning, and moving, and so real. And beautifully written! (Do you have it posted somewhere without the commentary, so I can put it in my memories?)

[oneiriad.livejournal.com]

Well, thanks :-) And I posted it back in the summer originally. Let's see... ah, there we are: http://www.livejournal.com/users/oneiriad/84628.html

[porridgebird.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)

[elessil.livejournal.com]

*sniffle* I meant that entirely as a compliment. I rarely cry when reading fic, especially not such short one, but this had me in tears on every single re-read, even now. And it makes me shiver. It's nasty and sad and I don't want James to die...but this take is strangely sad-beautiful.

[drbillbongo.livejournal.com]

Ah, I remember that fic. It was so sad that I actually vowed to never read it again. But here you are with the exclusive commentary and I broke my vow. And I cried again. *sigh*

Woe. :(