Seaflower - 5

 Tye woke up a little early, shivering trying to make the nightmare go away.  He walked to his mess and then decided against it, he found it good for moral to eat with your lowers every now and then.

“Hey skipper, who’s X?”

“Yeah, they can’t spell your name whoever they are.”

“Who calls you ‘Tyde’?”

“Maybe they don’t to have the quarters.”

“Maybe they don’t want to get in trouble for the man overboard.”

“Wait, what?”

“Oh, you didn’t know?”

Tye shook his head, walking straight past all the overly excited officers to the coffee maker. Great, it’s going to be a long day. It’s great to see all the officers’ alert and in good spirits around the scuttlebutt…

“But seriously sir, who is X?” One of the officers asked Tye again, interrupting Tye’s thoughts.

Tye took a deliberate sip on his coffee before he spoke.  “What on the sea are you talking about?”

“Sir, you haven’t checked today’s fight?  I thought it was the reason why you wanted quarters.  Or is that why it’s an x challenging you, does that mean it’s an open challenge?”

“Can you wait to harass me until I have had enough coffee to wake up?”  Tye took another sip. “You’re worse than the enlisted sometimes.”

A few officers chuckled, the one who had been bugging Tye took a few steps back, looking down and shuffling his feet like a school boy who just got caught doing something. Tye lipped a prayer and then shook his head.  Taking another sip at his coffee, he looked at the computer screen for the plan of the day.

“Wait. Who is X, and why can’t he spell my name right?  It’s Tye not Tyde.  He managed to get my last name right and it’s far more complicated.”

“This isn’t part of your quarters?”

“No, did anybody see how this person was?”

“It was filled out before the window opened, and it was right on top.  In fact whoever wrote it had girly handwriting.”

“How girly?”

“The X was “pretty” and so was your first name.”

Tye, who had been sipping on his coffee, nearly spat it out.  “Can I see it?”

“Sure, it is filed away with the other ones, the after 6 months it gets scanned into the computer system and destroyed.  The system you came up with.” One of the officers shrugged, wondering what was going on.

“I remember finding the books were people would sign up to fight and who passed.  It saves a lot of room if it is on a computer; it was easier to sort out later.  I’ll be back later; you men know what you are supposed to get done today right?” When they all mumbled yes, Tye took off to find that paper.

Right there was the X; it showed him everything he needed to know.  He knew who he was challenging; he would let the others find out at the fight.  Lipping a prayer and then biting his lips, Tye admitted to himself that he was nervous.