"What a long, strange trip it's been," Ron
muttered.
He looked up at Elmina Castle, the colony's limestone
fortress, sat atop an ancient rock at the mouth of the harbor, surrounded by a
towering battlement. Afront to them was the castle's main entrance, a large
double plank door, seemingly made for giants. It was heavily fortified: iron
wrought strap hinges, bars, and ring-shaped handles, were joined together by a
sharp grate, rusted from the salty air.
A cast iron cannon, wheels half sunken in a puddle of
sand, was rocked further into it by the loading of a bronze cannonball, to
which Harold smiled. He then lit the thick fuse with the stroke of a dirty
match, and off to the races it went. The spark hissed as it went, snaking from
the stem, and into the black barrel. As it winded around, Harold attempted to
steer the cannon toward the castle, barely able to tame the raging beast.
With a sharp crack, followed by a low rumble, the
cannonball erupted out of the barrel, leaving behind a dark plume of smoke. It
punctured the castle's first set of limestone walls, then the second, and
finally, it landed in the inner courtyard with a thud.
"OMT, Laura," Mike yelled above the sound of
the castle's return fire.
"What?" she replied.
"OMT," he repeated. "Oh My
Tomato."
As the hail of cannonballs came crashing down, the
four dashed to the castle's punctured wall, and stepped inside. The room they
had landed in, strewn with rubble and limestone blocks, was surprisingly bland.
A set of spiral stone stairs rose in a turret, and ended at a set of heavy
wooden doors.
A swift kick rattled the door just enough to dislodge
the bolts and break the rickety frame, sending it flying wide open. It startled
Christopher Columbus from a deep sleep, prompting him to jump up in his rocking
chair.
"Why are we here again?" Mike asked in a
hushed tone.
Gutter replied, "We're going to kill him to stop
the aliens from finding America."
Walking slowly toward the sailor, he said, "Nice
pad you've got," as he looked around. The walls were covered with zebra
fur, small, rounded gold bars laid on his desk, and ivory tusks were pegged to
the walls.
"Quem diabos é você?" Columbus yelled,
standing up. Laura and the others found it odd that a man who had seemed to
have lived the life of the mind, and whose brain was awash with theorems,
profundity, and abstractions, was reduced to mere gibberish. In a battle of
English wits, Columbus certainly didn’t have any ammunition, evident by his
incomprehensible gestures and speech attempts.
"Do you speak English, per chance?" Ron
asked. He took a crumpled sheet of papyrus out of the pockets of his khaki
pants, a scribble of random phrases he had looked up in haste before the trip.
Columbus backed away from his wooden chair and the
surprise visitors, knocking over stacks of diagrams and quills, as well as an
empty hourglass. He put his back to the corner of his Elmina chambers, arms
outstretched in both confusion and agitation.
"Fora!" he yelled, gesturing with his hands
to shoo Ron away.
-
Written by Jerry Zervas on 5/15/26.
DO NOT USE UNLESS GIVEN PERMISSION BY ME (i.e. email
me)
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