A boat that floated.
A bottle of rum more than half full.
The sun blazing in the sky, but a quiet breeze to soften the heat.
Jack looked up from his compass to the view ahead and sighed with contentment. Blue sea and sky stretched on as far as the eye could see; no other sails dotted the horizon. If you could see freedom, then that was it.
Jack could smell the air. To others it was noting, it held no fragrance, but to Jack it was a sweet perfume. He smelt the alluring spices of Singapore, the sweat-drenched humidity of unheard-of forest isles, the erotic tang of Caribbean fruits, everywhere he had been and everywhere he could imagine he sensed floating on the breeze and he drank it all in. He wanted more aromas to bewitch and entrance him and the knowledge he could have them was freedom to him.
The small boat rocked beneath him as he slowly familiarised himself with the rhythmic creaking of the wood beneath him. The flag he had made flapped in the wind; its skull grinning madly as its designer chuckled softly looking at it. Perhaps not the frightening image it ought to create, but it certainly represented Jack. A lone gull swooped overhead, squawking as it flew. An ugly sound perhaps, but to Jack it just reminded him of the lack of any other noise, no hustle or bustle but just the creak-creak from the boat as a constant reminder of sailing, of piracy, of freedom.
Leaning back, Jack took a carefree swig of his rum. His throat was so used to the alcohol that all he could now taste was the strong, sweet lull of the liquor as it ran down his throat. He could drink to get drunk, to become so inebriated he could barely stand. He could drink it because he was thirsty or to be sociable; to raise a toast or to strike a deal. Taste itself was malleable, after all, he had drunken rum until his throat and tongue felt only the sweetness and none of the burn. He could do with taste what he wanted, that was a little part of his freedom.
Jack craved freedom like some craved food or drink. To him it was almost untouchable and that made him want it even more. Yet he felt it, glimpsed it when stumbling into a hidden part of town or perhaps finding himself caught up in someone else's life. And when he did that he took memories. Touching other's lives made him leave something of himself behind, the irrepressible Jack Sparrow needing to leave an imprint, to create a memory in someone else's life. Yet he refused to let the reverse happen. Leaving parts of himself behind willingly felt like freedom to Jack, so why didn't he feel free?
Someone had stolen a part of him, a hidden place in him where his deepest thoughts lay. She had broken down his defences, he who had thought himself untouchable. And now he found himself incomplete it seemed.
Not incomplete, he considered, but unfinished. The thief had become that unwittingly, there was no way he could go and take back what he'd lost, nor steal that part of her.
It would just stay as it was; unrequited.
He could see it on the horizon, smell it on the breeze, here it all around him and get close enough to taste it. Yet Jack knew that without her he would never truly touch freedom.