Week 5 Storytelling: Sindbad the Unlucky Sailor Part 2

I awoke suddenly, sick to my stomach due to the rocking of the ship on the waves of the sea. Hearing a loud alarm bell ringing on the deck of the ship, I shot out of my hammock as quick as my feet could carry me. I only made it a few steps from my pitiful bunk before I realized that I was locked in a cage, having been betrayed by my former Captain and sold as a slave to a rich merchant just the day before. One of the sailors ran down into the hold, screaming at the other slaves and me to take up arms, as our ship was being set upon by a group of bloodthirsty pirates. The sailor released us from the cell, and thrust crudely made swords into our hands before marching them out to the deck.

I emerged into the sunlight, only for it to illuminate a scene of chaos. Sailors all around me were swearing and lashing at the ropes the pirates were throwing onto the banisters of the deck so they could climb up the hull from their boarding craft. Suddenly, I heard a man release a scream from behind me. One of the pirates had made it up onto the deck and engaged the sailors in a brutal sword fight. It was only now that my brain decided to remind me of the fact that I was a disgraced merchant, and not a soldier or a fighter by any means. However, I had no time to give this thought any credence, as I was being attacked from all angles. I fought and I fought until the other sailors, slaves, and I encouraged the pirates to retreat back to their vessel and depart. Without a moment's respite, I was forced back into the cells with the other slaves.

The next time I saw the sun must have been days later. Sailors were ushering the other slaves and me, down onto a waiting dock. I walked for miles in the hot sun until I reached what appeared to be a large mansion surrounded by a vineyard. My new owner told me that I would be hunting elephants so that their ivory could be harvested. The next morning, I walked into the jungle and found a sturdy tree to climb and wait for the elephants to walk below me. Once I saw a group of them, I let an arrow fly. It glanced off the of one of the elephants, and they surrounded my tree in short order.

Sindbad being chased by the elephants, from Stefan Mart

The elephants wrapped their trunks around the tree and ripped it out by the roots. I fell from the branches, and then I began to run as fast as I could as the elephants chased me. I had very little idea where I should go to escape the angry herd of elephants behind me. After a few minutes, I emerged into an open field of elephants' skeletons stripped of their tusks. I used this opportunity to hide in the rib cage of an elephant, and tried to keep a low profile as the herd moved past me. These elephants must have blamed me for all of these previous deaths. That night, I fell asleep with no idea as to whether or not I would ever see my home again.

Author's Note: For my story this week, I decided to continue the saga of Sindbad the Unlucky sailor. I really wanted to include the first and seventh voyage of Sindbad in my writing. I saw the most opportunity for me to make my creative changes. I am, of course, skipping the five voyages in between, since I wanted to see my story through to the end. In the original seventh voyage, he is acting as an emissary between two governments before he is captured by pirate slavers. Then he is sold to someone who makes him hunt elephants. The elephants then lead him to the graveyard so that he does not have to hunt them to procure ivory.

The main differences are that Sindbad is already a slave when this story begins, and is forced to fight the pirates as opposed to being captured by them. The next difference is that Sindbad does not reconcile his differences with the elephants. After they uproot his tree, he is chased to the elephant graveyard, which almost acts as a monument to his sins. It is definitely not a happy ending like the original. Sindbad never makes it back home, and never becomes rich, though I haven't definitively ended the saga.  

I kept the same first person point of view for this story as I had in the first part, and as it was in the original story by Andrew Lang. I feel that it helps keep my telling of the story relatable to those who have read the original version.

The Voyages of Sindbad, by Andrew Lang