Exit Part 4

Exit sighed and picked up his bucket as Captain Loophole scrambled back up the ladder to the steering platform. Captain Loophole’s ship, Knotleaguer, was not the biggest or best, but it did have almost nothing special about it. It had been built in the year 2201 using the most modern of techniques, and was made not of wood, but of a synthetic compound that looked, smelled, and felt exactly like wood, and had the exact same structure down to the atomic level. Captain Loophole had paid extra for creak. The sails were likewise on the cutting edge of technology, one of many products produced after the invention of cotton cloth, a monumental discovery that had taken place in the midst of a series of strange disappearances and murders of museum curators. Captain Loophole was always one to try things that had never been tried before, so it was with pride that he sailed Knotleaguer in what once were the seven seas, but became the nine seas for indistinct cartographical reasons. Every day wasn’t filled with adventure, but there were some that weren’t.

            Tim and Exit scrubbed the deck as they did every day. It was a monotonous task made more interesting by the oddities of the wood. Exit was fascinated by the swirls and spots painstakingly formed on the synthetic planks. He called over to Tim. “There’s a splotch here that looks like South America.”

            Tim set his bucket down and sidled over to examine the mark. “It looks a bit like a splotch on a bit of wood.”

            Exit hadn’t considered that before. “Yeah… a lot like it…”

            “Spitting image, almost.”

            “Excepting that wood doesn’t spit.”

            “Doesn’t have to, the image is doing that already.”

            “Hold on a moment, that is a splotch on a bit of wood. Something can’t just look like itself!”

            “How’s that?”

            “You’ve seen the catalogs, Tim. You even bought that pair of trousers.”

            “Now when you put it like that…” Tim broke off, gazing out across the water. “What’s that in the distance?”

            “Looks like… um…”

            Tim’s eyes lit up. “Looks like a splotch on a bit of wood.”

            Exit nodded. “There you go. Hit it on the spot.”

            “That’s South America, fellows!” yelled Captain Loophole. “We’re landing in Buenos Aires before sundown!” The ship creaked and rocked as he fiddled with the wheel. “LAND HOOOO!” Tim upended his bucket on his head out of excitement. Buenos Aires was known best for one thing: being the capital of Argentina.