The Persecutions of a Pimp Turned Pirate

Author’s note: Based on The Real Life Adventures of A.J. Fernandes
and stories told at Zaifu to Catherine, Czarina and Maria
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Sometime in September, a pimp traveled throughout the country in search of the most exquisite women. He went to faraway lands like Banawe and Sulu. He encountered different kinds of people like mumbakis, army generals, governors, warlords and ex-cons. And upon discovering his line of trade, they shook his hand and he promised them the best flesh he could find.

Little did he know that the journey would also take him to the most treacherous of territories. A place he’d not yet explored but would have to. The land of Heart, where the most beautiful maidens lived.

He spent a large amount of gold to get to Heart. There, he lured many women. And each one he met seemed more beautiful than the last.

But at one of Heart’s secret villages, he met the most beautiful of them all. The one he knew was meant for him and him alone.

He took her for a walk and they talked until no part of themselves was left unrevealed. That same night, the pimp felt something rare and strange stir inside him.

He listened to the universe’s lullaby as velvet darkness cloaked them. He looked up. And dangling from the night sky, stars winked at him, whispering a mischievous scheme. Slowly, carefully, he closed the distance between him and the woman, driven by a curious need of a once sleeping soul. And in a moment of truth and clarity, he saw that this was too pure, too precious not to pursue.

“I love you,” he said to her. It was the first time he felt it. And the need to express this love overwhelmed him.

He had hope: for her to love him back. He had an agenda: for him to be her keeper.

She looked at the exquisite women behind him. Softly, she said that although she had great affection for him, she could not will herself to love him.

Spurned, he left Heart that instant. And the women he had so far collected, he sent back to their own lands.

The mumbakis, army generals, governors, warlords and ex-cons heard this and demanded payback for a broken promise.

They found him in a wasteland but they never harmed him as planned. For they saw him lying on his back, his mouth agape in a silent scream. His bloody face, one eye less. He had torn it out himself. The eye of possibility. The eye that showed the perfect beauty of a We. A Two of Us.

His suffering satisfied them and they went their way. While Time stayed put and helped him recover. The marred part of his face was covered with a black patch of cloth torn from his shirt.

He came across a puddle and there his reflection told him it would be best to continue his journey not as a pimp but a pirate.

Upon reaching Black Sand Beach, he saw a ship waiting and a crew of men with No Hope, No Agenda like him.

With them, the pirate wandered aimlessly at sea because there was nothing and no one to anchor him on land.

He chased ships and their treasures. But in the secret chambers of his soul, he knew he was really chasing something else. It always escaped him now. But for a time, the elusive was his.

He says it hurts to look at the sky with his one good eye. At night, whenever he gazes at the same stars that not too long ago showed him something spectacular, he wonders with numbing fear—so close to hope—if he will ever experience what happened at Heart again.

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