Delay of Game
The pirates will have to wait...for now. Michael, the boat owner and co-writer/producer for the film flew on ahead to Kuala Lumpur for his morning meeting so that the boat would not have to go through the Straits of Malacca at night. (See below for earlier post). This seemed like a safe thing to do. What I didn't realize, is that I would still find a way to have some excitement.
It wasn't enough that once the boat owner had left that the crew decided to tell me that they were scared sh*tless about pirates. They said they were happy that we would be able to make the trip in daylight at full throttle rather than puttering through at night. I tried to laugh it off. They told me that I shouldn't. If pirates do decide to board us, I've got about an 89% to 90% chance of survival. Turns out the pirates are mostly Islamics who despise Americans in general. I think the 1% difference in my chances of survival would depend on my ability to throw down a Canadian accent.
The sun went down and hours passed as I kept sword-fighting in my mind. It was late and I was still wide awake, going over a 10% to 11% chance of surving pirates. I had taken an early nap in order to be able to easily stay up through my night watch driving up the straights. Everyone else had gone to bed. I was alone and trying not to bother the rest of the crew so decided to go for a walk down the marina and onto the beach since it was low tide. I figured I might be able to find some shells or something.
As I neared the end of the marina, it was dark so I took some time staring up at the stars and picking out constellations while thinking of amazing sailing trips in the Caribbean. Ahead was the beach so after a bit, I kept walking. There is a small boat ramp for the water-ski school and I walked down it a few feet. It became slippery with moss so I decided to turn and go straight for the sand. There are some concrete plates on the edge of the ramp. I didn't know they covered a ten foot drop into the channel until I stepped onto a large plate which flipped under my weight and let me plummet through like a trap door.
I was instantly stunned and hanging by my elbows as my chin rested on the concrete edge in front of me and my feet dangled somewhere below. I heard the plates under my elbows begin to grind and shift as they were about to give way. I scrambled out and looked back at the huge hole, barely visible in the dark as the other two plates fell and then splashed two seconds later upon reaching the bottom. I lightly pondered how I might've really gotten hurt had I not miraculaoulsy caught myself.
I kept walking down the beach. My right calf began to feel warm. Then my right hand felt warm. I looked down at both. I couldn't see much so I walked back toward the lights of the marina. The closer I got, the more I felt. When I finally got close enough to do a damage assesment, I knew it was more than a scratch. My right hand was blazing red and dripping with blood as if I had just come off a horror movie set. My entire right calf, shin and foot were in similar condition. I kept walking and inspected things closer. I had gashed my right fore arm, openly deep...straight back from my wrist half way to my elbow. Similarly, I had a sick-looking gouge glaring across the inside and back of my right knee. White flesh barely showed through the red. My flip-flop was a painted, sticky mess. My left toes hurt a bit and I saw that I had taken all the skin off the tops of two of them but those were minor concerns at this point.
Everything is closed. Everyone is sleeping, everything is dark. I started walking fast to the boat knowing I had a pack of butterfly closures inside a first-aid kit in my shoulder bag luckily sitting on the back bench. My world began to go gray. Lovely. I looked back and saw one red footprint every four or five feet connected by a red trail of spotty drips. Not good.
Gray started to go black. I was passing out, still about a hundred yards from the boat. Two things entered my mind. The first, was a high school cpr/first aid class. I sat down and pulled off my tshirt and strapped it around my wrist tightly then held my arm over my head to let gravity help out. I reached down with my free left arm, undid my belt and somehow one-handed it around my shorts and knee, using my chin to tie a small knot. Just as I completely blacked out, I had my second thought...
"Home...I want to feel home one last time...home."
I'm lying on my back, staring at stars. Where am I? Whoa...reality check. How long was I out? What am I doing? Oh, right...butterflies...boat...go slowly. I sat up and used both hands to tighten the knot around my knee before making my way a few feet at time, sitting down to recover when things went grey.
Butterflies...boat...butterflies...boat....butterflies...
Blood ran down into my armpit as I migrated, looking like a wounded statue of liberty. I finally made it...carefully took a deep breath, and stepped across to the rocking swim-platform. I reached my snoring bag which had the butterflies cuddled up inside a cozy pocket. Using my teeth and left hand, I undid the zipper and got the strips out. I stepped back onto the dock to keep from staining up the boat too much. I put the strips into my left pocket and grabbed the hose and began washing off mud, blood and sand while sitting down to keep from falling down. I need stitches, but stitches are not an option here and now.
Yep. I'm going to have a couple of (embarrasing) scars I believe. I used the last "white" remaining on my "now red" tshirt to dry the water off. I started with the back of my knee and strapped it shut fairly well. I rewashed my wrist one more time, marveling at the sweet number I had done to it. I peeled half the butterflies off the backing, and stuck them to one side of the wound. I then pulled them over to the other side while peeling the rest of the backing off. Eventually, I stopped being a fountain.
I sat for a bit, then washed off the boat and swim platform. Then I sat a bit more. Clear thinking returned, mumbled itself up, then returned again. I remembered a pack of Peanut M&M's in my pocket. I threw away my tshirt into the nearest garbage can and sat down to eat some colorful sugar coated nuts from America. I began to think about pirates and an 89% chance of survival. I began to think about if I had fallen all the way through the trap door without my elbows catching. I thought about the overwhelming feeling of how much I love home. I stopped thinking.
I started smiling...and still am. It's not my time. This was just a little test to see what I'm made of. It's going to be a couple of little scars that tell a story for my grandkids someday about how you shouldn't walk around marinas in Singapore in the dark...yea, someday...because I'm luckily not the loser in sudden death overtime. I was able to get away with just causing a delay of game.
Pirates in Paradise
Life continues to get better...I have "passed the test" in terms of screenwriting. I've been promoted to writer/co-director and am starting to learn the art of directing on top of finishing the script. I even get to write myself in as an "extra" so I'll have the added joy of being on the screen. I'm thrilled as I'd hoped to be a writer, somehow...someway. It came true. I felt it was a good first step to someday being a writer AND a director...somehow, someway, maybe five years down the road.
Life said, "why wait?" and gave it to me now. Cool.
It's unbelievable how, when you get your act together and start driving yourself down the right road, that everything falls into place as it should.
Even beyond this first film, I'm already on board for two more feature-length films after this one is completed in December. Triple cool...writing, directing and job security.
So, we're a week late in terms of "traveling" during this "screenwriting tour" through Southeast Asia. We depart in a few hours for Malaysia and our first stop is Port Dickson, seven to eight hours up the coast to the North. Currently, I'm sitting in Singapore just 70 miles North of the equator. Yes, it's warm. It rains every afternoon for about forty minutes. Its the kind of rain you don't see very often, unless you're here on a daily basis. I love watching it madly wash everything before the sun comes back out to bake away the wetness.
Now, about the pirates...we are about to head through the Straits of Malacca which is one of the hottest pirate areas in the world. Last year, there were 30 pirate attacks, 29 some hijackings and a handful murders (which were reported.) Pirates pose in fishing boats, come aboard vessels with modern guns and take what they can before leaving. Sometimes they take the boat and toss crew and passengers overboard to the sharks. We supposedly should be safe as they are generally after larger cargo. There is a constant presence in Singapore waters of Coast Guard...patrol boats are armed with heavy machine guns mounted on fore and aft decks. The patrols sit on opposite sides of the channel. These patrol pairs come every mile all up and down the channel but we lose them as we head into Malaysia.
I'm trying to decide who is right. On the one hand, a few people say..."no problem, you'll be fine." On the other, people are saying, "um, you're going through pirate country" in a way that says we should be pretty damn careful. I'm on night watch tonight for 8 hours and will be driving through shoals and fishing boats, weaving my way slowly amid a drastic puzzle of vessels and shallows in the dark of night. I'm up for it. I expect nothing of any significance but sort of hope for some excitement so I'll have something to write about.
In fact, I've put down some notes on a modern day "pirate movie" about a child born into the trade who must escape. The pirates here are run by the Asian version of the mafia and even the Chinese military...or so I've heard. Blah Blah Blah...
In the next few hours, I will leave the perfect cleanliness and security blanket that is Singapore and head into the wild for the next ten to twenty days. Eventually we land in Phuket, or however you spell it, about 500 miles north in Thailand. It's supposed to be beautiful. I hope I make it there to find out. I hope I make it back to tell about it.
In the meantime, I got word today that my dogs are well however AxL is possibly thinking about "checking out" as I feared. He's stopped eating for the last few days and has to sometimes be carried in from outside. Once inside, he flops down in a back room of my friend's house and sleeps. I hope he's just missing me but my heart has a twinge to it anyway. The twinge is offset with fun stories of Venus and her antics.
As much as I'm trying to enjoy this experience, I miss "home" with all of my heart and look forward to getting back there safely as soon as possible. I feel a bit like "Wesley" in
The Princess Bride in that I was nothing more than a "farm boy" who needed to go out into the world as "The Dread Pirate Roberts" did in order to find his fortune before coming back to Princess Buttercup so he could take care of her in style on top of having true love.
I feel as if I've done my part now...I just hope and pray that there's a Princess Buttercup who holds onto the dream of true love...because as Dorothy said...."there's no place like home, there's no place like home..." Ah yes, how many more movie references can I make? I guess I'm a dreamer, dreaming of a movie ending to my life here, I'm holding out for "happily ever after" and nothing short of that will do.
Time to cast off because a ship in harbor is safe, but that's not what ships were meant for. The Dread Pirate Roberts must sail off but...I'll be back...