In retrospect, telling a child to look after

In retrospect, telling a child to look after something so private probably was a mistake. It would be like asking a fox to look after a chicken coop. Almost immediately I decided

to check on the treasure map. As I'd feared, Blackbeard Jr. had caked it in drool, fingerpaint, and... was that a booger? But beyond my cabin's doors, a crew yearned for direction.

. "I feel we be finding treasure by this purple circle." My second quipped "Isn't that's a ring mark from your wine goblet, sir?" "DO NOT QUESTION ME!" I yelled rolling it up.

Damned fool, doesn't he know that being sloshily and sloppily drunk is the very essence of cartography? Damned fool! Cretan! Why the greatest explorers were drunks, how else

could anyone explain all those wiggly coastlines, with their bays and coves and inlets? Must've been some brave drunkards who set out to map the world when the local shops were shu

t and it seemed like a constructive enterprise to wander, off-their-heads, along the coastline laughing and making marks and lines on what they would later call a map. "Not worth f

olding this map," he said. "But folding a story is a whole other self referential thing." The map is not the territory, but folded territories give meaning to

the folder. The story in this case is the author, the folder becomes the pen. There is no such thing as virtuosity, or at least there is no need for it anymore. Technology replaces

erudite literature of a chosen few with stories by quorum. Strangely, we return to the beginnings of storytelling,sitting around a fire each taking a turn until we come to the end.