Faded Glory
The old ship sails true, just as she used to. Her sails shine brightly white in the sunlight, and the golden ornaments across her still seem to glimmer effortlessly. Though, despite it all, she's without a crew or captain, and I can't say how long it's been...
When my grandfather was a young boy, he watched her leaving port, watching as his mother sailed away onboard - a simple deckhand but certainly the best around... He remembers wondering if she'd return, if he'd ever know her again... His father said surely so, surely so for all we know... but time is cruel and time is cowardly, and the years came so quickly that they felt hourly... Grandfather became a man, and his father passed away, and every single day the port lay empty, enforcing his quiet dismay... His beard grew long, his family grew too, and before he knew... he, too, was an old man. He used to say to me, to warn me, that a ship would come one day, full of treasures and stories from far away, and the crew would offer me glory of the highest order... glory that one could barely refuse...
Now, on the anniversary of his passing, as I look to the sea, its waves lashing... I see her sailing in, as majestic as the tales told, she bears the weight of sin, and the ecstasy of gold... The deck holds no life, the treasure lays open for all... I feel the echoes of strife, the darkness of the call ... Where once my great grandmother had innocently joined a doomed crew, I found myself drawn to the obnoxiously obvious darkness within you... your empty halls, your autonomous movement, the way you dare me to climb aboard, just to break the stodge built up around my mundane life... If not for myself, I refuse the call for all who have come before, and all who will come after... my children who need a father, their children who need someone to tell the tale... the tale of greed and hope, and the firm ship rope, that turned and tossed, to guide the lost, towards a gaping open mouth, exuding the smell and sound of an unknown paradise, just a few miles south...