Lucas woke up suddenly. A strange noise was heard entering the cabins. The boy, with sweat on his back, got up slowly, so that his gaze met with…

…The sailors entering the cabin.

"Ha ha ha… What's up kid, did you freak out?" Ron scoffed, looking at the young cabin boy, who had gone to bed early.

"At least he is attentive…" Said the helmsman, already quite tired from the long day "… the other cabin boy is still sleeping like a log"

Ricardo was snoring in his net, next to a rusty knife on the floor, which had fallen long ago from his hands.

"Go to sleep everyone, we have another long day ahead of us!!" Ron yelled, as he turned off the oil lamps in the cabin.

Lucas cursed his luck, it had already cost him enough to get to sleep for these bastards to wake them up screaming and walking.

But luckily for him, the waves lapping at the hull felt particularly soothing tonight, so he managed to get back to the dream world quicker than before.

The night passed normally for our dear sailors, but unfortunately for Lucas. The call of nature caused him to wake up again from sleep.

Somewhat tired Lucas went to the kitchen to meet his needs, he had never liked doing it in public, like those drunks who pee and shit in a bucket in the middle of the cabin.

Luckily, the matter didn't take long and with a bucket in hand he headed to the deck to dump the contents of the bucket.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

The sky must have been full of clouds, since no stars illuminated the night, but thanks to the oil lamps, the darkness did not prevent him from finding the edge of the deck.

"Every night the same routine, you should get your body used to not waking up to pee" Said a voice behind him.

Lucas turned around and saw the lookout, who was smoking from the helm of the ship, watching the sailors on deck keeping night watch.

"Couldn't you sleep, Tommy?" Lucas asked, since today he wasn't on guard duty.

"I just like this time, the night always brings back nice memories…" The lookout said

Lucas wanted to go to sleep, but he noticed that Tomy wanted to keep talking, so he politely stayed to listen, after all this old man had been the one who threw the life preserver to get him out of the water when he got to the boat.

"The nights on my home island were beautiful, you could always see a sea of jellyfish of different colors in the ocean..." continued the lookout "They came and went with the current"

"Every night I went with my wife to the beach, to see that spectacle of colors, it's a pity that I went out to the ocean to see more beautiful things like that, but I never found anything..." The lookout lamented while he smoked looking at the ocean "...I only found this infinite darkness"

"Do you have someone in your life, boy?" asked the lookout

"No… I'm still single, unfortunately I'm not very attractive" Lucas answered with some self-mockery.

"Ha, ha, ha... that's the least of it, boy, with the right words you transform a toad into a prince" old Tomy laughed

"I hope you find love, boy, and don't end up like the idiots on board this ship, who can only fill their hearts with whores in the harbor"

"The truth is that I resigned myself to dying alone a long time ago, I don't think anyone would like me" Lucas replied somewhat depressed

"Well..." Tomy said with some experience "The first step is to love yourself, the second is to believe in yourself"

"But you are still young, so everything can change faster than you think, not as young as your partner Ricardo but quite compared to an old man like me"

Lucas, already somewhat tired, said goodbye to the lookout to go to sleep, on the way he thought about the words that the lookout had told him, but he knew well that he really did not doubt when he said that he planned to die alone.

"I wish it was as simple as you say old man…" Lucas muttered to himself, as he looked up at the stateroom's ceiling boards.