The sea was filled with the metallic waste formed by the separate armies of man which had clashed and destroyed each other in no great victory. On the current cruisers and destroyers floated about as their sailors had long since been choked or sundered by the enemy's weapons. The carriers were splintered and barely floating, only masses of steel, erupting into the sky. Planes littered the sea making it look more similar to gravel than water, which was stained pitch black with oil slowly burned away by the ongoing fires all around. Now again it was larger and so terrible that the whole of the world's fleets crumbled against each other like paper and became no more than a singular defunct continent of steel. 

“Hey Jill, let’s have a competition.” The Captain had been kicking around a piece of scrap metal on the deck near the edge and launched it into the pitch below. Jill was trying to find bits of wood she could carve, in all she was not having as much fun as the Captain. 

“Sure, what game?” 

“Something where the loser gets a punishment.” 

“Oh, one of those…” She let her breath float back on the ocean breeze in a sigh. 

“Don’t want to?” His coy smile was about to begin its mocking. Enough time had passed that even she could tell, and the idea of dealing with him like that irritated her more than his stupid games.  

“Fine, I’ll do it.” 

“How about a gamble?” He grabbed a sheet of paper from a pile nearby. Making sure not to cut himself on the rusted piece of scrap that had served as a paperweight.  

“On what?”

“We’ll each make a paper airplane, the one to go the farthest wins.” 

“Alright.” It should have been an easy enough victory. Jill remembered well from school when they used to make paper planes in class all the time, sort of getting familiar with basic aerodynamics. Then the more complex aircraft became their focus. The Captain was hardly an idiot, but he would be beaten easily. 

Having prepared her plane, Jill took up a spot near the edge of the deck. After a few head scratching minutes the Captain stood beside her and began his countdown. 

“Set, and…go!” The Captain signaled the launch and Jill proudly sent forth her parcel, watching it glide effortlessly on the sea winds like a real jet. It must have gone some fifty or seventy  feet from the edge of the deck into the calm waters before them, safely setting down on the hull of a bomber. Meanwhile the Captain, and his tragedy of a plane, had vanished. 

Probably gave up and hid somewhere, Jill thought. Though right when she was going back to her own business a shout came from somewhere high above her, it was the Captain. He had ascended the Bridge tower and was leaning out the windows. Before she even had time to reprimand his fleeting escape an almost imperceptible white speck came out  of the Bridge and soared into the ocean, disappearing among some wreckage easily a hundred feet away. 

Shortly afterwards he emerged from the bulkhead with the most smug expression Jill had seen on any person in her life. 

“Play fair for once, loser.”

“Come on, I had to even the playing field. Don’t be like that.” He seemed honestly hurt by her consternation, as if he couldn’t recognise a cheat when he saw one. This tore down her frustration and replaced it with her tired indifference.

“What will you have me do then?”

“I don’t even really know.” He chuckled, “I was just bored.” 

“So nothing then?” 

“Well,” he stared off the edge of the carrier into the tar water below, “could you jump?”

“I would die Captain Stupid, then you’d be even more bored.” Boys, remarkable idiots.

“Good point but you really don’t like me, I can’t like things that don’t like me.” Comment after comment irked her. If boys like him grew into men then it was no wonder everything turned out this way, villainous dunces. 

“I’m not a thing, I’m a girl.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Fine, do another lap around the deck then.” The same boring punishment as all the other times they played his stupid games.

She started at a soldier's jog, looping around the deck and reaching him again, winded. She wasn’t a soldier, she was barely a scientist. By the time she got back the Captain was laying with his legs off the ledge. 

“Want to count how many planes are in the water?” He blurted, clearly already bored by his recent amusement and moving onto bigger and duller things. 

“Paper or metal?” 

“Metal, the paper ones are all too soggy to make out from the trash.” 

“I guess so.” 

They decided to only count hulls, as many numerous scattered wings and other bits were  floating about that, if counted, would balloon numbers. All told it took about thirty minutes before they had to switch to binoculars. After that another hour and a half before they were both happy with their estimates. 

“I counted five hundred and twenty-nine.” Jill was so proud of her number she regretted not suggesting this be a punishment game as well. There’s always next time.

“Bzzt.” The Captain sounded. “By my count there are only four hundred and eight. You double counted quite a few there, Young Miss.” He pointed out several items which had clearly been split hulls, two halves of bombers being parted across some distance. 

Still bored, Jill decided to come up with their next game.

“Wanna shoot them?” The Captain kept staring out into the warzone, thinking. 

“And waste all of our precious ammo? How could you even suggest a thing Ms. First Mate?” The wind knocked  a bullet onto the ground and it rolled over to them. The Captain picked it up and chucked it back onto the pile of military rifles sitting haphazardly a few feet away. Jill wasn’t worried about the pile, but  being as they had them they may as well get some use from the stupid  things.

 “Besides, what if we accidentally hit someone?” He actually said it so naturally it took her a minute to process. 

“Like how you almost shot me?”

“That was different, I thought you were one of the bad guys.” At least he was dense. She walked over and grabbed a pistol about her size and leveled it to his head. The Captain looked at her a little puzzled and then back into the ocean, laying his back on the deck again while birds cawed overhead.  

“What do you think then?” It took him a minute to respond, he seemed almost  more interested in the floating  seagulls who were motionless against  the currents of the air. 

“I guess you don’t hate me, so I have no reason to hate you?” 

“No, I mean about the guns. What should we do with them?  You said you’d come up with something.” She tossed the pistol back into its hive, becoming unnoticeable against the black mass of steel, brass, and plastic. 

“Oh, right...” He waved it off and returned to his birds.

“Have you even been taking your responsibilities as Captain seriously?” She scoffed.

“No, I’ve just been wondering how to make a better plane.”

“Why bother…” if you’re just going to cheat? She thought. 

“So I can keep beating you. If I don’t improve you’ll find a way to beat me, so I have to stay ahead of the curve.” He really was a  cretin. 

“Think that’s what happened to them?” She directed their attention back to the metal planes which men in far off cities threw across the sea in some absent minded game. Over-rich with prosperity, bored of peace. 

“Probably.” He mumbled, clearly not pleased with the turn in conversation. 

“So why bother?” 

“Maybe because the wind hits your skirt the right way on the west side of the ship.” 

“Pervert!” She screamed. “I didn’t even notice.” 

“Yeah, neither did I the first couple times.” A cretin and villain. Scum. So many repudiations ran through her head at once she couldn’t pick just one and started hurling every one that came. 

“When I win I’ll make you climb your stupid tower in your underpants!” He was unphased and a little amused by her outburst. 

“Don’t make evil plans, they never come true.” She hadn’t gotten used to his occasionally moody passivity and instead tired herself out more than she had on the jog. 

“Whatever. You seem a bit young to be peeking up my skirt anyway.” He sat up cross legged and pulled a ration bar from his pocket. Peeling  away the silver wrapping  and digging into the dry stick. 

“I think I turned fourteen recently. What about you?”

“Sixteen next week.” She stood straight and held her head proudly, the Captain clapped sarcastically and she shrunk back into the droll which covered her  before. Seeing her seclude her pride he laughed and spoke up again.

“I guess we’ll have to do something for your birthday then.” Suddenly her whole mood was lifted. Almost as if it were the promise of Christmas. 

“Like what?” The Captain took a moment to ponder her question. 

“Target practice?” 

“With what?” She asked. 

“Origami  animals?” At his response she grew the buds of anger yet again and lashed out. Kicking bits of metal every which way, partially aiming to hit him. However he finished his ration bar with little disturbance and checked his watch. 

“Why is it the only thing we have plenty of is paper and guns?” She yelled out to no-one in particular. It didn’t help that she only knew how to fold planes either. 

“Priorities on a war vessel my darling First  Mate!” He laughed. “Say,” he stopped his chest from palpitating long enough to again speak clearly, “want to play a game?” 

The dirtied water lapped against the hull of their ship, drifting aimlessly in the vastness of the unnamed, forgotten, sea. There was no sound on the wind, not of engines or guns, of man or machine. Deep beneath the pitch pools there were no marine words traded between creatures of the ocean, and the unfeeling metal hulks sank slowly to the floor. Then, amidst this outrage of silence, one could almost hear the bickering of two children, frittering away their time.