The Captain & Lily
A cheesy love story adapted from four random photos.
written by Mike — posted on August 16, 2025
photography by Karen Patten

The Challenge:

"My photo safari was so very much fun. It was the first time I went out with the specific purpose of taking pictures and NO direction whatsoever. I just walked. It was awesome.

My challenge to you ... is to come up with a story for one of the attached photos :o) [Don't ask me anything about them.] This isn't about my creativity, it's about yours and me  sucking it up as a life force as if i'm a creative vampire  enjoying it with every ounce of my being!"

Oh, right. Like I was only going to pick one with photos like these. I sat down with all four & tried to piece them together, with the specific purpose of writing a story & NO direction whatsoever. An idea for a love story reaching soap opera levels of cheesy came to me, & I just couldn't let an idea like that die. The result is probably the dorkiest thing I've ever written. And I loved the crap out of writing it. With every ounce of my being...

I

The sun shone high over the vast, glistening sea. An eerily quiet calm had overcome the crew after a particularly violent storm. All that remained of the good ship's sail was a broken string, hanging low and limp over the ship in the nearly windless afternoon.

The deck was crowded, with all available hands trying to patch together a replacement sail before they left the eye of the storm. Murmurs swept across the deck as they glanced at the captain standing at the head of the ship, staring out into the clear, blue void. He knew that his crew was aware that the storm had tossed them into uncharted territory. But he wouldn't say it aloud. He couldn't let them see the worry on his face, a fear not of being lost at sea, but that of never returning home to her.

He had been thinking of her ever since the first rumble of thunder from the storm that claimed his ship's sail. In truth, she had never left his thoughts, but now she had staked full control over them.

As the crew put the finishing touches on a sail in an eventually near-fruitless effort, he eyes remained fixated on the horizon, and his mind remained fixated on his beloved Lily, whom he knew he might never see again.

And the wind picked up as a faint roar echoed in the distance…
 

II

The captain awoke with a start. He had no way of knowing how long he had been unconscious, as his pocket watch, was lost to the depths of the ocean. As was, assumedly, his entire ship. Washed ashore with nothing but splinters of wood remaining with him from his grand vessel, he sat up and looked around, taking in his new surroundings. He was on the beach of an island, the rest of which seemed to be compromised of a vast, dark jungle. He became consciously aware of the already present lump in his throat as he was overcome with the distinct feeling that he was being watched...

Quietly the natives peeked through the trees at the stranger. He was tall, thin and pale-skinned, in high contrast to their short, round and green frame. He appeared weathered from travel, and carried no visible weapon, save for the possibly useful wooden plank floating several yards away from him on the shoreline. Though the stranger looked lost and weary from apparently rough travel, the natives remained silent and concealed.

Despite the traditional war stripes painted on their bodies, theirs was a peaceful tribe. They knew he would eventually find his way to their village. Until then, they would allow him the respect to become aware of his surroundings on his own.

Once again, the captain found himself staring out at the horizon. The lump in his throat grew larger as he mourned the loss of his last ship home. He wondered if any of his crew had also survived somewhere on the island, but mostly, his thoughts were on his beloved Lily. A silent prayer escaped his lips in petition that he might just glimpse her face again.
 

III

The sound of the dock bell woke Lily from a daydream that seemed to have lasted forever. For a brief moment the flash of a thought of possibly staring into her mirror at an aged and withered face frightened her. That revelation would have to wait until later, for the rest of her body was currently in the process of flying out the front door.

A witness of Lily's dash outside to catch a glimpse of the incoming ship would notice next that her front yard was quite unkempt and overgrown. Had that witness been a neighbor, they would've known her lack of attention to such details as keeping a tidy home, like most of reality, had escaped her some time ago, when her beloved's ship failed to return home from sea on schedule. Only the sound of the bell on the dock snapped her out of her daze, awakening a fruitless hope that it might be her captain returning home to her. On nearly a dozen occasions had the bell rung, and on nearly a dozen occasions had her brief moment of hope been tossed to the ground, finding a measly carrier boat of food or other supplies that were important to the lives of the others in the harbor town... others who must've given up on their one true loves, she determined. She would have known if her love had been lost; she would have felt it the instant that it happened. Lily pitied them for their lack of faith as much as they did her for her inability to remember to live. This repeated incident of the dock bell signaling for some other ship that did not carry her heart never phased her for long. She would simply and slowly walk back inside and return to her state of a daydream.

This time, however, when she ran onto the edge of her miniature jungle of a lawn, her eyes grew wide and damp. Her ship had come in. The ship that had been haunting her dreams for endless nights was approaching the dock from the horizon. She was frozen in place, watching it, for what seemed like hours. Then her mind seemed to kick in again, and she ran to welcome home her brave captain.

To an untrained eye that had seen the ship before it set sail many moons ago, it looked worn and rickety upon its return, a patchy, tattered sail flying from its cracked mast. Through Lily's eyes it glistened like gold. Her heart raced a beat as she searched for her love's face among the crew... but stopped cold as the man she knew as her captain's first mate and second banana (DO YOU SEE WHAT I DI) led the rather small procession off the ship and caught her eye. He had been dreading this day since latter half of the hurricane claimed his noble captain and half the crew.

Tears streamed down her cheeks like a light shower as she stared at him in confusion. He started to speak, but she knew from the look in his apologetic face that he didn't need to say a word. Try as he might, he couldn't save his master and friend from the strong winds of the high sea. He caught her from falling as she broke down and burst into a wailing sob. He held her mournfully but cautiously as he joined her cry of sorrow in the memory of their beloved captain.

Yet as she cried, her heart did not empty. Her last thread of hope had not yet perished, even at the plain sight of things as they now were. A small part of her believed that he might still be alive out there, somewhere, in the vast ocean. Quietly and slowly, she walked back inside, and returned to her state of a daydream...
 

IV

Since the natives' spoke a different tongue than he, the captain looked at them as he spoke, drawing on the side of the mouth of a cave with a round stone. The tribe had been more than hospitable to him, trying to get him to stay and understand them. And while he expressed his thanks, he still tried explaining to them why he must leave the island as soon as he was able. Only now did he remember his grace with a quill and paintbrush, as he carved smooth curves into the surface of the cave wall. His attention to detail, he thought, had become unusually fine, especially considering he'd hardly so much as picked up a quill since he originally set sail. Lily seemed to come to life as he completed the final stroke of a perfect image of a beautiful flower. The tribe gazed at it in awe and understanding. He no longer needed to explain in his foreign tongue; natural beauty transcended language that evening, as it always has and shall remain so for all time.

* * * *

Her eyes were much clearer the morning she emerged from her front door for the last time. She had been in a daze for so long, that she forgotten how clear and blue the sky could be in the early morning. The night before, her captain's second banana told her the he, too, believed his old friend was still out there somewhere, thinking of her under the same shining rays of hope in the night. No longer could she stay boarded up in that house. Not while true love was waiting to be found again. Before she took the second banana's hand and followed him to the dock for their voyage, she picked up a small, white stone from the high grass. Before she left this life behind to travel uncharted territory, she must leave her mark... a mark that all could see and understand why she couldn't stay... a short, personal creed that kept her alive and finally helped her find the courage to go and seize the moment before they all passed her by...