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Daniel McCoy stood on the rocks and cast his line again into the Pacific. No matter how chaotic other parts of his life became, fishing was his refuge of peace. He knew they would be waiting for him when he got back home. He would go peacefully. After all, he deserved this. But he needed to spend one more hour in heavenly solitude before facing the consequences of his acts.

Daniel McCoy, like the other inhabitants of Pitcairn Island, was the descendant of the nine Bounty mutineers. Their reputation had been romanticized over the centuries, but not so the crimes nearly a third of the modern male population of the island would be found guilty of. From mutineers to sexual predators. Their ancestors would be ashamed.

I wrote this for the What Pegman Saw photo writing challenge. The idea is to craft a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long using the photo prompt above. My word count is 126. Today, thanks to Google maps, we are taken to the Pitcairn Islands which have a rather colorful history, both ancient and modern.

I took the name “Daniel McCoy” from one of the Second Generation of the Bounty mutineers living on Pitcairn. As for the rest, it’s all true. You can read about how the current population of Pitcairn was founded, and then the sexual assault trials of 2004.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.