Why Did You Come to America

[pistolshrimp]

This is a fiction prompt asking you to write a bit about why you're character decided to take come to the colonies.

Write a sentence, a paragraph, or an entire story. My hopes are that it will get people at least thinking about the world his or her character inhabits and perhaps to share a bit about that world with the rest of us.

The rules are simple. Make sure your story is thematically appropriate and keep in mind everyone has different skill levels when it comes to writing - let's be encouraging of anyone brave enough to post a little writing here.

As for myself, I will be posting two pieces of what I hope will become an ongoing story that I will continue in it's own thread.

[pistolshrimp]

Part I

It was not by choice that I returned to America, but rather I was propelled here by fever of obsession. Carried along forcibly by some undefinable feeling that I must, at all costs, know the truth. No, something deeper than that, darker perhaps. There is a moment, once one has sat alone too long in an unlit room, when the need to know overpowers the fear of who, or what else may be in there with you. This is what prompted my return to the colonies.

I say returned as from the age of 7 until 8 I lived with my parent in His Majesty's Colony of Rhode Island. Curiously I have no memories of my mother from this time, although I am certain she was there with us. Meals cooked, clothes mended, the various odds and ends taken care which indicate a mother's presence. In fact the closet thing I have of a recollection of her during this time is what must have been a dream. I am lying awake in my bed, my eyes clenched closed as tightly as I could, wrestling a growing awareness that something awful should befall me should I open. At last I cannot take it any more and I force open my eye to see my mother, standing across the room, unmoving, staring down at me. I call her name but she makes no response. I call again to the same result. After what seems an unbearable length of time my father enters the room and pulls her away. Of course this is not so different than the typical night-time fantasies every child of such an impressionable age experiences from time to time and I only make note of it for it being so vivid despite so few solid memories of that time in my life. In any case not long after my 8th birthday both my parents were dead and I was on my way back to London to live in the care of my uncle.

[MarpTarpton]

If there was a truth to be found amidst the curls of incense smoke, the fine silk draperies, or the gorgeous women strewn naked around the room, it was that this was surely the finest brothel in all China. Marp sighed in contentment, the soft light from the dying candles casting dancing shadows along every inch of porcelain skin it could find. Artisans, all of them, he reflected in silent bemusement, dragging from the pipe provided him earlier in the evening and enjoying the savory sweetness of its contents. To die here, he thought, at this moment, surrounded by such beauty would be the best death a man could know. Unfortunate for the women around him, but wasn't that particular trait a consistent smudge on the profession anyway?

As he sat musing, lost in a timeless sea of peace, a knock came from the large door at the other end of the room. It was late, but surely a brothel kept no schedule and he was too relaxed to concern himself with worry. "Enter," he bade softly, naked as the day he was born and adjusting himself in his high-back wooden chair so that whomever was vising could appreciate the afterglow of his conquests on this night.

The door opened on well-oiled hinges and a small woman walked in, dressed in delicate robes that took twenty years or more from her aged figure. The paint on her face was fresh, her cheekbones high, lips full. And he had met her before, the owner of the establishment. She looked at him, eyes either unwilling or uninterested in taking the challenge set by his exhibitionist position, before silently closing the door behind her and making her way with ease through the sleeping bodies all around.

"A letter, sir," her voice rich with an accent he could not place. Perhaps she was taught English by someone with a German accent? Either way, it was intoxicating. As she continued to talk, he couldn't help staring from her lips down to the folded part of her robes just above her breasts, doubtless done on purpose, but with artful subtlety to appear otherwise. It wasn't until those lips stopped moving that he realized he hadn't been paying attention.

"Sorry," he recovered. "A letter, you said?"

"Yes, sir," she smiled the smile of infinite patience learned through years of experience. "Arrived with urgency, just a few moments ago."

She handed him a small fold of parchment stamped in blue wax, before bowing to make her leave. He would have followed her, asked her to share his bed, to join the motley of pleasure to which his room had become a host. But by the candlelight, he caught the symbol embedded into the hard wax seal. The two stags, four beavers, and cross that made up the herald of the Hudson Bay Company.

Tarp.

It had been years since he had received word of his cousin's intention to work in the New World while he himself turned east instead. He imagined Tarp many times over the years, toiling away on ships, exploring untamed wilds with savages and puritans. He wasn't sure which company would be worse, but often decided he would prefer the savages. Mind brought back to the letter, he broke the seal with the tip of his finger and began to read. And as he read, a great weight descended on him. Delicacies of the Forest-Men. Harassed by Russians. Stolen innocence. Captured by natives.

"The Hudson Bay Company," the letter concluded, "takes no responsibility in the loss of life of its brave contractors. A copy of Mr. Marpton's acknowledgement of this can be had upon request by appointment in our London office."

He read it again. Read it a third time. By the fourth read he had a plan. By the tenth, he was dressed and at the door.

He wasn't sure how many times he had read the missive when his ship docked many months later on the shore of the Providence. One hundred. One thousand. Tarp was his only family left. Had he died, had they confirmed his whereabouts or the condition of his remains, Marp would still be cavorting in pleasure houses throughout the Orient. But Tarp had gone missing. They had lost him. Which meant his cousin could still be alive, still be suffering in slavery. And that would not do.

"Hello, New World," he said, to no one in particular as he looked out upon the settlements, lines of smoke from chimneys marring the otherwise beautiful blue sky.

[Icon]

Having banged every female in England, Icon set sail for new horizons... Him, and his wide eyed stoner cat, Alowishus, and the fattest sack of O.G. Kush you ever seen in yo life.

[Rifmaster]

After robbing a bank, the police caught Rif Raf and sent him to a new colony in 'Murica, here he proceeds to wear a plague mask even though there is no plague over here and bowtie shoes which he got from his great great great great granny.
The end.

[pistolshrimp]

Thanks for sharing guys. Marp I look foward to reading more.