On the Edge of the Archipelago

The tropical hell is too cramped, so you have to fight again and again for a place in the sun. With competitors, with the dixes, and even with nature itself. At fourteen you’re already a warrior, but at twenty-five they might call you an old man—here life is fast, and death is even faster.
They say that sometimes silhouettes of black ships glide across the night skies, watching the teeming life below with indifference—or even disgust. Some think it’s the fantasies of dreamers, but others believe. After all, there has to be some meaning to all this.