Dreams of the Quill

I’ll take / A quiet life

“What did you say you wanted the supplies for?” asked Shades, one eyebrow rising a good inch and a half above his shades. Guy Fawkes and Scars were still at their game of Seven-Four, and the rest of the crew was elsewhere on the ship.

“Like I said, I’d like to keep a diary,” Marin said, smiling shyly at Shades.

“Is there a problem with that?” Shades asked, looking over at Guy Fawkes. Guy Fawkes yawned as he tossed his d20 overboard.

“Let her do whatever she wants, diary or manifesto or whatever,” he said, standing. “I’m going to sleep until we get to Florida. Shades, take over for me once you’ve gotten our guest what she needs.”

“Ahahaha, just a piece of paper and a pen is fine,” said Marin.

“Fine, fine.” Shades looked over at Scars, who was still sitting at the round table rolling his die repeatedly. “Hey big boy, I’ll be right with you alright?” Scars grunted, and Shades disappeared into a cabin. Marin wanted to whistle. She was sure that she wasn’t acting suspiciously at all, and soon she would have a good reason to lock herself up below deck with no company save her plans for re-establishing the Constitution.

Shades reemerged two minutes later with a spiral-bound notebook and a blue ballpoint pen.

“Guess you can have these,” he said. Marin accepted them graciously and then skipped downstairs as Shades sat himself across the table from Scars. She installed herself at a desk in a luxurious cabin and set pen to paper.

Marin tapped her pen on the desk a few times.

Marin stared at the page as if waiting for it to respond.

Marin sighed as she found herself doodling her favorite pokemon in the margins. It wasn’t easy to plot the overthrow of the government. It just wasn’t coming together as easily as she’d hoped it would. Simply finding a place to start was taxing. Marin realized that even an outline would be too much to try for from the beginning. The Bible as Literature class she had taken the previous year with her friend Elise, never far from her mind, returned to her. She remembered how her teacher had told her that if outlines didn’t work, she should freewrite, get all her thoughts out on paper.

“Who thought high school education would prove useful in the real world?” she chuckled, beginning to write once more.

The last thing Marin noticed was that the words on the page were getting fuzzy, and then her face hit the notebook and she was asleep.