A picture says a
thousand words. Write them.
Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a
metaphor, a commentary, or a critique about this picture. Write something about
this picture.
Be sure to tag writeworld in your
block!
This is captain Duke Wyndwalker from an indie game
called ‘windforge’ and the link to source is above. The kickstarter is here.
http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/79397329335/writers-block-a-picture-says-a-thousand-words
The Airship Mechanic
He chomped on the end of his cigar,
folded his arms - the large wrench still held in his hand - and studied her.
Captain Duke Wyndwalker.
She had been escorted down to the
engine room by another crew member; one who had now deserted her.
She noticed the leather braces on his
wrists, the brass goggles on his head, the long dreadlock of hair down past his
shoulder, the immaculately kept moustache and beard, and his clear intent eyes.
“What?” he demanded.
“I need a job... on an airship,” she
explained.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I get that you have an airship - I’d
be a fool to not notice that!” She wanted to hit herself for saying something
quite so stupid given that she was standing on the deck of one.
Silence.
“I haven’t worked on one before but I
know engines.”
“Engines?” he asked incredulously. He
leaned his head slightly to the side and his eyes travelled down her frock clad
body to her feet, dressed in their neat booted heels. She looked as if she had
barely ever left her home except to go to chapel.
“Why would I employ you?” he asked, his
voice gruff and gravelly. “If you have no experience.”
“Cap’n, cops on the dock.” The voice
called down the gangway. “Want permission to board.”
She startled and he noticed.
He stepped much closer to her. “Quickly
now, why do you need to be airborne?”
She had to trust someone and she
couldn’t say what it was that made her trust this large, dangerous looking man.
“M-my uncle... he h-hurt me... so I hit him with a spanner.”
“Is he dead?”
“I didn’t mean-”
“Is he dead?” he repeated.
She just nodded mutely.
“Good.”
The wrench he passed to her to hold. He
grabbed her and pushed her into the engine room. Shut and locked the door
behind her. They key went back around his neck.
“Allow them up,” he called out as he
strode away to the upper deck.
It took some time for the boarding
platform to lower and lift them up to the deck height so that the police could
board. She closed her eyes and she swore all kinds of prayers and promises. The
engine wheezed and clanked and made odd little noises and she felt safe; as she
had always felt safe near machines. That was part of the reason why she had
reacted so badly to her uncle. He had invaded her private space and then he had
tried to invade her.
Her ears strained to listen over the
machinery noise.
She heard the hobnail boots on the deck
as the police came aboard and the mutter of deep voices. She couldn’t hear what
they were saying.
She held the wrench he had left behind
and the feel of it in her hand, still warm from his; the weight, solid and
heavy and familiar calmed her. Inspecting the engine, she tried to see
where he had been working. She listened now, but to her; the ship. She
reached out and carefully wiped off the glass on a gauge.
~~~~~
When he unlocked the door, her head was
buried inside the engine. “I think it’s the tappet,” she called out.
“Yeah. That’s why I was trying to
change it.”
She pulled her head out to smile at him
and he stifled a laugh. The humidity of the engine room had made her hair go
frizzy; wild curls were escaping from her previously neatly pulled back hairdo.
Her face was flushed, dirty and she looked a different person to the one that
had boarded his ship minutes ago.
She glanced down at his thick wrists
and the heavy leather covering that made it thicker still.
“My wrists are thinner,” she said.
He nodded.
And that was it; she had a job and an
escape. She need never set foot in a town if she didn’t want to.
~~
Later that night, she was talking to
another female crewman who had been assigned to supply her with clothes and
ordered to share her cabin with the newest crew member.
“The captain is so-” She stopped, at a
loss for words.
“Don’t worry about it, honey. Everyone
is a little in love with the Captain.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone.”
~~~~
© AM Gray 2014
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