Equanimities

All good things arrive unto them that can wait - and don't die in the meantime, and so Cha sat eagerly upright and started learning the noble arts of piracy.

The piracy manual spoke of qualities like "good awareness, the ability to make snap decisions and being able to gauge your opponent and the risk he presents to you", and although most of her previous time was given to reading chivalric novels, singing forlorn love ditties, and coping with drone subordination and defying fedos, she knew it was time to gather information in order to detect any anomalies. Caution and secrecy being of the upmost importance, she proceeded to do the bravest thing that can be imagined, a thing to make one shiver when one remembers how the piracy world is given to resenting shams and affectations: she started to look around the room. She took great caution in acting casual, glancing only occasionally - as if she had nothing more important to attend to (which, as we know, was the case anyway, but that's besides the point). In fact, it was a source of fascination to glimpse into the private lives of those in power.
And so Cha observed discretely the public in the Hellcat's Pub, and that public was of great variety. Trim built, handsome, graceful, neat, bright, educated. Experienced, industrious, ambitious. Or of slow and sluggish bearings, but with a soft heart. There: one homesick and crying. Next: huge and good natured. A dopey headed, lazy, sentimental fellow, full of harmless brag. A grumbler by nature at the back. And an extremely unwilling bartender.
From all this merry diversity Cha drew her first conclusions. In her notebook she wrote first: "There aren't many Hellcats in the Hellcats' Pub". Secondly: "There are plentiful gentlemen waiting for a Hellcat to show up in the Hellcats' Pub." And third: "When a Hellcat shows up, it causes a good deal of unsettledness in men's minds."

Cha's knowledge on piracy grew exponentially those days, for yes, the minutes grew into hours, and the hours into days. Patiently Cha waited amidst the idle nonsense and laughter, the holiday frolic and horse play. It was a pain to get a Quafe; kafak stayed non-existant. She hadn't been prepared for these difficulties, yet she wore the burden of neglect brave, and in silence.
How she longed for that first kill! Occasionally she tried to catch the look of a rare Hellcat, the way one does an Interbus flight attendant in turbulence: her smile was all Cha had. Invariably the Hellcat in question - all impeccable garmentry, flair and devastating elegance - would hurry by, nod friendly, and brightly say: "Soon."

She discovered waiting was an art that takes great skill. She learned why pirates sometimes don't do anything and also the process by which they don't do anything. They would be waiting "just a couple more minutes" regardless of how much time had actually passed already; those monotonous minutes were just a fact of piracy life.

Time ticking away, as she gazed idly into space turned out to be some of life's most quintessentially human moments. To wait is to stop reacting to the external world, and to explore the internal one. It is in these times of reflection that people often discover something new, whether it is an epiphany about a relationship (she came to realize that it wasn't going anywhere, but who cared? She was free, he was free, and inbetween his bedmanners were of extreme quality) or a new theory about the way the universe works (what if all of this was merely an illusion, a grand web of random data she was caught in; where she was no more than a digital toy, randomly exploited by some bored superentity with universal power and an aptitude for wasting time?).
Yes, many people emerge from boredom feeling that they have accomplished nothing. But is accomplishment really the point of life? Those were the days she was content with growing old here, withering away in the grip of her own thoughts, stuck like the oatmeal to the bottom of her daily bowl, the only minor setback being the absence of kafak. How time flies when one has fun!
"Soon" became a word of lesser relevance. One day soon she would be dead. People would look back at her life, and they would tell each other how her path to greatness had laid in total sacrifice for the greater good. So sure of victory at last is the courage that can wait.

Occasionally, she would jump out of her glassy-eyed drooling state of nothingness. Then she wanted to saturate these empty moments either with kafak (which always was impossible), or with productivity, communication, and the digital distractions offered by her less than slick mobile device. She then found herself amazed of the advantages that waiting actually could offer - so many practical benefits that she couldn't even begin to list them all.
She cleaned out her bag. She unearthed an array of peculiar things she didn't even remember what they were for, why she had kept them, or how they had gotten into her bag in the first place.
She made plans to relieve the murky economic climate of her wallet. Saving money on food by growing her own! She drew extensive plans for her very own greenhouse, right here at the bar. She was sure she could find plenty of sod around here, although she would have to collect it at night.
She polished her table so shiny she could see her face in it, and installed a daily tour of emptying all ashtrays, fruitlessly hoping an indebted bartender would bring real kafak.
She unsuccessfully explored all possible means of attaching the orphanaged heel back to her boot; duct tape of course proved to be withstanding the longest to the extensive tests she consequently subjected the boot to.
She made lists of Advanced Pirating Techniques (for instance: "during a fight, fighting insults are required. In the event both participants are still alive at the end of the fight, the participant with the superior insults shall be declared the victor." Or "no pirate shall attend a movie with less than an Arrrr rating", and "a pirate may tell any tale of swashbuckling without being called on the details, as long as at least 51% of the story is true".)
She practiced incorporating pirate terminology into her everyday speech. She learned that a pirate does not use the word "Fabulous". Ever. Furthermore, pirates do not say "please" or "thank you" - no sir, the phrase "yarrr, i'll probably kill you tomorrow" is an acceptable alternative for "thank you". Hmm. She scratched that, and clarified: "yarrr" seemed to be a perfectly acceptable answer to any question.
Finally, she learned to knit.

Waiting can have devastating effects on good people, causing them to go astray morally. Cha too fell victim to this truth.
One time, she jerked awake. She sat for a moment, and then realized that a/ before her was placed a mug of real kafak and b/ she had found, totally unexpected, a suitable victim for her first kill.
The coldness of the kafak slowly drifted to her dulled synapses. This was truely unforgiveable. The adrenalin began to rush through her veins. She grasped the rubber grip of her pistol (she always carried this with her, from ever since her childhood days when her grandma had taught her how to make apt use of it), and creeped slowly and singlebooted around the room. Nobody paid even the slightest attention. She jumped up behind her seated target and screamed: "Heat it, or i'll shoot!" The bartender indeed stood up, slowly turned around, hands in his pockets, and as Cha squirted the water at his chest, she knew from how he towered over her she had made a grave mistake. "Forgive me! Forgive me!" she cried, her hands clasped in an attitude of prayer. "I swear, i swear by everything holyl I'll drink it any way it is served!".
It was the only incident that she caused there, blinded momentarily by arrogance. The bartender never made any allusion to her error after that. She didn't dare to move away from her table anymore regardless, and never objected to the various states her drinks and meals were delivered in. Her politeness derived not from a recognition of the bartender's cooking qualities or serving virtues but from the fear he instilled in her. If so inclined, he could, and would probably kill her. Luckily he has not abused his power. In the exercise of his sway over Cha he was moderate, not the least bit capricious, and, one might even say, constitutional. He might have dismissed the idea of doing away with Cha - so long as she gives him no cause, which she up until this day doesn't plan to.
Cha lapsed into a slightly petulant silence as she pondered the implications. Waiting in great humbleness - such is the fate of Hellcat applicants. Soon.

Then, one day, the unthinkable happened.
Mynxee walked in, and said "Let's go." Yes, she simply said "Let's go", just like that.

Cha took a deep breath, shook off the giddy whirl of contemplation and, with detached countenance, stepped out of the bar, and into piracy.