The Abrupt Demise

Cornelius was not drunk enough for this shit. There was some kind of dance off and alien invasion force or something, it was all too much for Cornelius to take in with this pounding headache. He watched as the firing squad chased away the other competitors in this battle. Finding himself completely forgotten about, he decided he would go in search of some alcohol to make this whole sorry mess make at least an ounce of sense. He pulled himself to his feet, straightened his jacket and hat and strode towards the nearest building he could see. In this state of confused sobriety he couldn't really make out that it was the jail until he was inside.

It was a sparsely decorated jail, at the far end of the room there was a row of cells in which sat a mustachioed and miserable looking man. In front of the cells the prison guard was leaning back in his chair reading a newspaper. As per regulations the keys to the jail were hanging from his pocket, just out of reach if someone were to try to grab them while trapped in the cells.

At Cornelius' clumsy approach the jailor looked up from his paper a look of outrage plastered across his face. "Hey you, aren't you supposed to be being put to death by firing squad?" The jailor asked.

"They let me off for good behaviour." Cornelius said. He leaned over the desk and pulled open the desk drawers. They were filled with knives and explosives, bottles of unmarked medicine and fragments of shattered glass. There was rather unfortunately no alcohol.

"I've not heard of that ever happening before." The jailor said suspiciously. "I should call this in."

"I wouldn't if I were you." Cornelius said. "The captain killed the other guys and it was such a rousing success that he went boozing and whoring and by now he's probably a little busy if you get my meaning." Cornelius paused in his search for alcohol looking the jailor in the eyes. "Where do you keep the booze?"

"But it was only five minutes ago." The jailor said.

"You questioning your captain's efficiency? That sounds like mutiny to me." Cornelius said. "I dare say you'd get a date with a firing squad of your very own if you go around questioning orders like a little communist. Now if are you done writing your own death sentence can you tell me where I can get a drink around here?" For a long moment the jailor stared at the pirate, his eyes probing Cornelius' face looking for some telltale sign that all this was bullshit. He couldn't find one.

"There isn't any in here." He said resignedly. "There's a bar just a little way from here."

"Think you could show me the way, provide me with a little coin of the realm perhaps?" Cornelius asked.

"I can't leave my post." The jailor said reflexively.

"What in case this reject escapes?" Cornelius asked. "Here let me save you a little time." He pulled from his waistband his flintlock pistol, and in one smooth movement he took aim on the unsuspecting prisoner and pulled the trigger. The bullet passed between the bars and into the prisoner's head killing him instantly.

Then that unhappened and Cornelius was standing looking at the prisoner very much alive, his hand upon his flintlock pistol. "What in the blazes was that about?" He demanded. The jailor gazed incomprehendingly at the prisoner, glancing back at Cornelius in bewilderment.

"I would advise against shooting the prisoner." The jailor said hesitantly. "I would have to arrest you."

"I did shoot him. Then I unshot him." He looked down at the uncomprehending jailor and decided to try another tack. "You know what it was probably pre-emptive drunkeness."

"Pre-emptive drunkeness?" The jailor asked.

"Yeah so you'd best get me to that pub unless you want to cause a paradox." Cornelius said. "If it's that sack of shit you're worried about we'll bring him with us."

"That's against regulations." The jailor said nervously.

"Yeah well haven't you ever heard of giving a dead man a good send off, a last night as it were?" Cornelius asked.

"No, not exactly." The jailor said. "It's pretty much protocol to keep prisoners locked up and not to go drinking with them."

"Ugh fine." Cornelius said. "Why do you have to be such a stick in the mud?" He strode around the desk, in one swift movement producing his cutlass from it's scabbard and resheathing it in the jailor's chest. "I try to be a reasonable guy but in the end it always comes down to the bloodshed." Cornelius sighed, grabbed the jailor's keys, pulled out his cutlass from the poor guy's chest and watched him die. "Such a pointless waste of life." He said. "And I guess this one is sticking."

After resheathing his cutlass, in it's scabbard this time, he strolled over to the prison cell spinning the keyring on his finger. "Hey prisoner guy." He said. "How did you do that before?"

Colonel Aureliano Buendia looked up at the stranger. Time after time he'd died one way or another, and each time something would snap him back, back to before he died and give him an opportunity to try again. Never before had anybody else noticed that it had happened. "You saw that?"

"I saw it." Cornelius said. "I want to know how you do it, and learn it for myself."

"Get me out of here and I'll teach you." The Colonel lied. Cornelius appraised the prisoner. He was certainly in a position in which Cornelius himself would have said anything to get out of it. He'd have said that day was night, that red was blue, hell even that cirque d'soleil was a fun and entertaining night out well worth the ticket price.

"Fine." Cornelius said. "But if you try any funny business I'll kill you again." pause. "And again. And you know just keep doing that until you get the point." The Colonel nodded. He'd worry about how to deal with the pirate when he got there, and so Cornelius warily unlocked the door.

Colonel Aureliano Buendia pushed open the door and stepped out of the cell. Cornelius indicated they leave immediately, he wanted to get pissed and he reckoned they would be back pretty soon. Colonel Aureliano on the other hand knew the moment he set foot out that door he would be dead. He needed a disguise. He started to change into the jailor's clothes, stopping only to instruct Cornelius in no uncertain terms to stop looking at him, he didn't swing that way. Finally he was ready to go.

Together they stepped out of the door, to a chorus of 'there he is' from guards that had assumed that jail was the last place a wanted man would want to go. The guards raised their rifles on the pair. Cornelius quickly pulled his cutlass and held it to the Colonel's throat.

"I'll kill yer jailor." He said. "Don't think that I won't. I'm particuarly good at killin' things." Even as he said it Cornelius knew there was no way out. The longer he hung around here the more armed guards headed towards them, and the greater the chance that The Colonel would be recognised. "What's yer secret?" He whispered. It was now or never.

The Colonel did not reply. There was a loud bang and there was nothing to reply to any more. The guard who took down Cornelius was a crack shot. There would probably be a commendation in his future. The corpse of the pirate fell to the floor and The Colonel backed away from it.

"I erm..." he started hesitantly. "I guess I'll go home and have a shower. Got no more prisoners to guard anyway." The other guards weren't interested. They had prisoners to hunt for. The Colonel slipped off, for the moment a free man.