(2)”Aye, sir,” I said to him puffing up my chest and giving a sailor’s salute. “I’ll be your wingman, anyday, anytime.” I was proud to be in his company. He was a giant of a man, with few words and had sold his soul to the devil. He was also a little hard of hearing.

(3)”Not so fast, laddie buoy,” he said grabbing me by the collar.”Run that by me again. Did you say you would clip my wings?” I repeated what I had said slowly as I said(5) a perfect prayer in a desperate hour. His sharp knife glistened in the noon sun as he pulled it out of the scabbard. His face was so close I could see the tiny veins in his red eyes and smell his rum breath.

“Me laddie, you just extended your life by some more years then!” he said dropping me hard on the deck of the boat. Fear had me made me giddy and I stumbled away from him. The other pirates all laughed at me.(9)They told me , “Don’t rock the boat.” and “Hey!! I don’t get seasick, babe !!” Just because I had kept saying that to my girl before we left the shore. They treated me like a kid. But I was sworn to be the worst outlaw ever! (4)”I’m gonna steal your attention like a bad outlaw. Every single one of you.” I said in my mind to them all.

(6)”Don’t listen to Jim Beam or Johnny Walker………… ” said John Slayer confidentially to me. “They will lie to you. Always listen to Long John Silver. He is a better guide.” Long John Silver had only one good leg. He also had a parrot that was permanently perched on his right shoulder and a black eye patch over his left eye. He left me with an unsettling feeling.

(7)”Use the needle of your compass to sew up your broken heart” he said to me that evening when I asked him a question.

“But I am not heart broken.” I informed him.

“Not yet little man, but I will break that loyal heart of yours to John Slayer right on this ship! And if ye inform him of the mutiny this night, your young heart won’t beat very much longer.”

(8)I always knew this would happen. I had smelt the conspiracy a mile away…….Thank GOD John Slayer had suspected as well and asked me to lace all their drinks with epidol which would put them all to sleep in about ten minutes!! My next plan was to throw them overboard!!

Something was afoot. I wandered over to where they were gathered. I knew one of them, Barney White, as a security detail to the President.

“Wait until the news media get a hold of this……..the vultures.” said Barney. “it is going to cause wide spread panic!”

“Not so fast,” I said “Run that by me again. What’s going down?” Two guys started talking at the same time trying to cover up the situation.

“Don’t listen to Jim Beam or Johnny Walker,” said Barney dismissively. “They’ll lie to you. Truth is that an asteroid has left its orbit and is heading for the Earth! It is colliding with us in six hours. The mass of the asteroid is equivalent to that which wiped off the dinosaurs 75 million years ago.”

“When did the Government know about this?” I asked

“Ahhhhhhh, summertime…..It was in the sweet summertime” said Barney. I called my wife tearfully and told her. She cried too and said a perfect prayer in a desperate hour, “God save our souls!!”

But when I called Martin Scorsere, my scientist friend who was a bit off his head. He was not alarmed.

“I always knew this would happen…….Thank GOD!!” he said.

“How do you mean?” I asked

“No one paid me any heed when I said I had invented the Pulveriser Kolaroid, did they? Now Earthlings, I am gonna steal your attention like a bad outlaw.”

“Martin,” I said “the only thing you ever invented worth mentioning is the word Pulveriser Kolaroid which means absolutely nothing! Who has ever seen this invention of yours?”

“Now you will see it in action as I pulverise the asteroid!!” he said excitedly. Martin did pulverise the asteroid with the Kolaroid and won a nobel prize. It seems perseverance pays.