Freedom
Captain Jack Sparrow woke at dawn in the darkness of his cabin. He lay there for a moment, pondering how odd it was to be awake at this hour, and without the shattering headache of a hangover.
The air around him was stuffy and dank, so Jack sat up and tugged his boots on, groping for his discarded hat and belt. Once dressed, it was only a matter of moments to skin up the ladders, out into the brackish salt wind of the open sea. Jack spotted Anamaria on the quarterdeck and relieved her of her watch with a coy grin and a peck on the cheek. She relinquished the wheel and disappeared down the hatch.
Alone, the pirate captain basked in his favorite view in the world: the dusky pink horizon meeting the fathomless ocean, and all of it seen from the helm of 'this' ship. Because the Black Pearl was his again, at last, and he meant to keep her.
Jack's mind took him back to when he had first been voted captain of his beloved ship. He'd stood at the wheel on a morning much like this, he and William Turner Sr. Bootstrap had placed a calloused hand on his shoulder and said something to the younger man that Jack had never forgotten. "The sea rolls to the heartbeat of the earth, lad. Ye've but to listen to her, and she'll never lead ye wrong."
Jack had listened, to Bill and to the wide water, listened, and gotten into more scrapes than he cared at the moment to remember. But he had also gotten out of them, to stand here now, King of the High Seas.
He had the Pearl, and the Pearl meant . . . everything, really. Power. Safety. Home. But mostly, for Jack, it meant you were your own man, with no one to stand in your way or take your credit. Your deeds were the only thing that affected you, and you could live or die by what you, and you alone, did.
Jack Sparrow, Captain of the Black Pearl, lifted his face to the rising sun, steering into its flame. Closing his eyes, he began to sing. "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me . . . ."
Captain Jack Sparrow woke at dawn in the darkness of his cabin. He lay there for a moment, pondering how odd it was to be awake at this hour, and without the shattering headache of a hangover.
The air around him was stuffy and dank, so Jack sat up and tugged his boots on, groping for his discarded hat and belt. Once dressed, it was only a matter of moments to skin up the ladders, out into the brackish salt wind of the open sea. Jack spotted Anamaria on the quarterdeck and relieved her of her watch with a coy grin and a peck on the cheek. She relinquished the wheel and disappeared down the hatch.
Alone, the pirate captain basked in his favorite view in the world: the dusky pink horizon meeting the fathomless ocean, and all of it seen from the helm of 'this' ship. Because the Black Pearl was his again, at last, and he meant to keep her.
Jack's mind took him back to when he had first been voted captain of his beloved ship. He'd stood at the wheel on a morning much like this, he and William Turner Sr. Bootstrap had placed a calloused hand on his shoulder and said something to the younger man that Jack had never forgotten. "The sea rolls to the heartbeat of the earth, lad. Ye've but to listen to her, and she'll never lead ye wrong."
Jack had listened, to Bill and to the wide water, listened, and gotten into more scrapes than he cared at the moment to remember. But he had also gotten out of them, to stand here now, King of the High Seas.
He had the Pearl, and the Pearl meant . . . everything, really. Power. Safety. Home. But mostly, for Jack, it meant you were your own man, with no one to stand in your way or take your credit. Your deeds were the only thing that affected you, and you could live or die by what you, and you alone, did.
Jack Sparrow, Captain of the Black Pearl, lifted his face to the rising sun, steering into its flame. Closing his eyes, he began to sing. "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me . . . ."
