This one is a bit I wrote a while back for an assignment. I mean to write more, but this is the first chapter of my story, "The Adventures of Mary Celeste":


There had been some discussion of death. But more importantly, there had been more discussion of what was on the other side once you got there. And Mary liked the idea of dying and living forever after that in complete bliss. Sure, everyone likes to imagine what happens to your consciousness after your physical body dies, but not everyone who likes to imagine it goes and kills himself. Usually when that happens, the person who jumped ship had given up on the ship, didn’t want anything to do with the ship, and was pretty sure that ever boarding the ship was a totally stupid thing to do.
No, Mary cheerfully and eagerly jumped ship and ended her life. Not that there was anything wrong with the ship, just that she heard there were beautiful islands and she didn’t want to wait till her ship reached the original destination. Strangely enough, her middle name was Celeste: entirely coincidental and had nothing to do with the Mary Celeste itself, even though Mary’s ship, like the famed brigantine Mary Celeste, would reach its destination unmanned and everyone would find it a mystery. But this is not a story about the Mary Celeste, or even about our own dear Mary’s life. This is Mary’s story in the afterlife:
In the fifteenth year of Mary Celeste Norris’ journey, Mary abandoned the journey and took off on an unknown path of her own. It began when she found herself treading water in a great warm ocean with no land in sight, except for some huge islands floating in the sky with beautiful waterfalls disappearing into a mist. Mary was confused; this is not what the afterlife was supposed to be like at all.
“Hello?? Somebody help me!” she called, panicking. She could see people moving about on the island above.
“Hello!” somebody yelled back.
“Hello? Yes, I’m down here! How do I get up there?”
“Ah, yes, very good! It’s very lovely to meet you!”
“What??” Mary was beyond confused at this point and in the beginning stages of befuddled. “No, don’t leave me! Where should I go? What should I do?”
“Well, frankly, my dear, I don’t give a—“
“Bradley!” interrupted a woman’s voice. “Honey, if you’re down there without a ship, you can’t very well climb up here. But there’s some luxurious underwater caverns if you dive deep. I hear their pubs are the best.”
“Oh,” started Mary with a bit of an air. “But I don’t drink. It’s bad for your liver and once you start, you could become an alcoholic.”
A loud guffaw erupted from above and another voice added:
“Sweetheart, I don’t know if you know this, but you’re dead. You don’t have a liver to destroy. And alcoholism is a living world thing. And before you argue that you might run out of air, you don’t have lungs either. You aren’t breathing, even right now. Just dive in, grab a rum, and leave us alone.”
“Owww, be nice to the girl, she’s new to all this. She just came a little too soon is all,” whined the woman.
“Okay, thanks!” cried Mary, and she did as she was told. They were right; she didn’t have to hold her breath underwater. And she noticed that everything was crystal clear with a dark blue hue. Far below the surface of the water, she saw lights. She swam downwards until she reached the bottom. She landed on a cobblestone street with shops and pubs on each side. Lanterns lit the way in both directions and at first everything seemed deserted. But then two men burst out of a pub door and wrestled on the pavement squawking about a dancer.
A lady in a sparkly green leotard and a headdress of conch and oyster shells calmly tiptoed out of the pub and stood on the side to watch the spectacle. Mary gave her a questioning look and the lady replied while thumbing her nose,
“The shawt ‘un slapped me bum, an’ the lawge ‘un righ’ smasht ‘is rum bottle on th’ shawt ‘un’s nose.”
Mary blinked in astonishment. Some afterlife, she thought. She slipped into the pub and was immediately offered a bottle of rum by a man enthusiastically screaming, “Chug! Chug! Chug!” at a young child who couldn’t have been any older than three chugging away at a keg that said, “RUM” on the side. Mary looked on in horror.
“Aw, dinnae worry yer pretty wee hidd, lass. He died a’ sixty-six but wantit tae look lak a wee boy sae he could spit profanity an’ people’d get their craic, ya knoo?” a plump ginger slurred at her.
Mary stared into her rum and then up at the bartender, who looked like this wasn’t the most exciting thing he’d seen in all his time bartending.
“Does this happen all the time?” She asked.
“Nope. Usually he comes in here, gets as drunk as he can without blacking out, and then howls the most disgusting, repulsive words he can still think of. He’s getting pretty good at it. He doesn’t use the new words, though, so don’t expect to get offended. He uses the old Norse oaths, the ones used to either start a fight or summon spirits. But now the only spirits to summon down here are the ones right there in your bottle. Care for some more?” he offered patting the keg of rum on the wall.
“No, thanks. But why are they used to summon spirits if they are so awful?” She asked.
“Because the Church went all goody-two-shoes on the language of the land and all of a sudden, the old tongue is replaced by their cursed Latin,” and with that he gave the bar top an angry swipe.
“But don’t most words come from Latin?” she wondered.
“Most words are from languages of people whose ancestors soaked the ground with Roman blood and then happily repopulated the land to the memories of it. The only reason Latin is still used is because of the mercy and fascination of historians and linguists, and the inability of some religious nuts to let it go. If Latin is as high and mighty as you lot were led to believe, how come the so-called ‘barbaric’ languages are considered unutterable? If you can answer me that, then I’ll kiss the guy next to you full on the mouth.” The guy next to her gave the bartender a deer-in-the-headlights look. “If you ask me,” he continued, “Latin is the tongue of the dogs and the ancient tongue of the Germanic tribes is the glorious legacy of a respectable people.”
“I take it you’re German?” the guy next to her guessed. His name was Sean, apparently. Or Linda. Or English Scum. His tattoos weren’t very helpful as to which name was his.
“Certainly not! I’m Faroese,” the bartender boasted.
“Is that Asian?”
“It is no more Asian than you are English.”
“Tha’s a good way to get a rum shot in the eye, sailor.”
Mary stared into her rum again and imagined a great naval battle upon the amber waves. She looked back up at the bartender and the guy next to her. She was quite sure she was going to enjoy herself in the afterlife.

“So, tell me more about old Norse.”

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