Nothingness

Disclaimer: Pirates of the Carribbean, in this case Hector Barbossa, don´t belong to me. I think you would have noticed if they did. Trust me, you would have.

Summary: Barbossa´s thoughts about being undead, cursed with a shallow faked imitation of the most cruel life ever to be led. Emotion without being able to feel anything, pain while unable to feel pain at all. Takes place in Curse of the Black Pearl.


It was a bright night.

Not a single cloud veiled the moon or the shiny stars. On deck of his ship, he could see the whole sky stretched above him. The black of the nightsky was only matched by the one of the sea. Like a mystery, a sinister secret lay the sea beneath him. She was treacherous, gently, loving, wrathful, everything at once and none at all.

There was no wind. Of course he did not not feel that there was no wind, he could see that the Jolly Roger was hanging limply and unmoving. He could have told his men to row, but he didn´t feel like it. Oh joy, what a joke. He didn´t feel like doing anything. He did not feel anything for nearly decade now.

Fate was cruel. Cruel and unforgiving as the sea, yet fate wielded nothing of the gentleness as the sea did. You fell in love with sea, but never with fate. As he gazed into the stars he didn´t hear one sound on board. He didn´t know what his crew was doing, but it was not like he cared. He lifted his hand before his eyes and watched the gross sceleton hand; the bones, rags of tissue, a few skin was left. It should have shocked him, scared him, but it was amazing to what the human mind could get used to. Aging, loss of limbs - even being undead.

He could not feel anything. Neither heat nor cold, chillings winds or the scorching sun; not a light breeze, nor a hurrican. Emotion was gone - each feeling a mere disappointing shell of itself. Love, hate - after a while it became all the same. He thought that there was a layer of apathy around him, an equilibrium...the only thing that kept him sane. Sometimes he´d prefer insanity. How it would be not to care about this all? Now he was scared about not feeling fear, sad about not feeling sorrow, furious because he wasn´t able to hate anymore. How would it be to let it all go? To let this torturing thoughts vanish into the bliss of insanity, to sail in the eye of the storm that was madness, to be beyond all this. But he guessed that the last part of his humanity was still there, keeping him anchored, keeping him sane.

It was still painful to not be able to feel pain anymore. He wasn´t making any sense, he knew it. But he couldn´t help it. It was like being trapt behind a veil. He could see life out there, blurred, but still real. But as he tried to touch it, his hands met an cold, unforgiving wall of nothingness.

It was an imitation of life he led, they all led. A faked one...reality through conviction, he thought. Believing makes it real. It was true, pirates were superstitious, mostly religious and always concerned about their immortal souls - they had believed in a curse, and here they were, cursed with life. Shallow, unreal life that was a hundred times worse than death ever could have been. Like a dream, a horrible nightmare from you could only escape by awakening, only discover that it never had been a dream, and that you were awake all the time.

Shocked by the fact that you couldn´t feel shock at all, heartbroken after discovering that you didn´t have a heart, hurt after realising that there wasn´t even pain left for you.

He knew he didn´t make sense...but that didn´t help one single bit.


Author´s talk: Here, my first PotC fic from Barbossa´s POV. He´s my second favorite...inferior to Jack only. I don´t know what made me write that, but I think it´s fitting, isn´t it?