|
No Way Out
BY: Sparrowhawk*** Contrary to popular belief, hell is a cold,
dark place. Jack
Sparrow knows this with the same certainty with which he knows that tomorrow at dawn they'll put the noose around his neck and he'll finally hang. He's searched high and low -- both the dank stone cell beneath the fort at Port Royal and his considerable wits -- to find a way out of this inauspicious situation, and he's come up empty. Since his cell is cold and dark, it must be hell, he thinks, laughing to himself at the irony: not even hanged yet and he's already gone to hell. The main problem with hell, as far as he can see -- other than the fact that it's *cold* and Jack hates the cold -- is that there's no way out. No back door to slink from unnoticed, no daring escape to pull off, no deals to be made. If hell exists and if he goes there, Jack figures it'd be only fair and fitting to try and take over the place. No honor among thieves, after all, and who better than the devil to understand a man's ambition? But even if such an audacious plan were to succeed, even if Jack became king of hell and all its minions, it would still be hell and he'd still be stuck there with no way out. It's not that Jack is a religious man, far from it. But when faced with too much time on his hands and a critical lack of rum, certain things creep into a man's mind that he ordinarily wouldn't ponder. Brilliant schemes that somehow went awry. Favors called in and debts still unpaid. Lost loves and bitter betrayals. The faces of the men he's killed and the face of one he intends to kill, should the opportune moment ever present itself. Jack was just fourteen when he killed his first man but he remembers it clearly. A sparkling Caribbean morning spent chasing down an enticing merchant vessel. A captain who made the ill-advised decision to fight rather than surrender. A sailor not much older than Jack himself, trying to defend his ship. Not killing him hadn't been an option, what with the fellow coming at Jack full-speed with his cutlass raised and ready. Jack was smaller and quicker and his blade cleaved a gaping gash across the man's throat that spattered them both in warm crimson. He can still taste the coppery tang of it when he closes his eyes, can still see the sailor's stricken expression as he dropped at Jack's feet. Following the raid that day, sticky with blood and sweat, Jack was convinced that he'd hang for that sailor's death and meet Old Nick himself shortly thereafter. There'd been many others like that young sailor over the years and their faces -- sometimes fierce, sometimes frightened -- tend to bleed together in Jack's mind. But remorse was burned out of him long ago and along with it any lingering concerns about his so-called immortal soul. He knows that all that matters is what's real, the things a man can put his hands on and the things he can see. Lucifer and hell -- like those other intangibles faith and love -- simply aren't real. He chuckles at a sudden, vivid image of that supercilious commodore with horns and a tail and big black wings. Bloody Norrington, convinced that pirates are the very embodiment of evil. Now, evil -- Jack does believe in that. He's seen it up close and personal on enough occasions to wish there was a hell so evil had a place to go. But he doesn't consider himself evil, not by a long shot. Evil is murdering the innocent and the unarmed for the sake of doing it, and though blood-stained Jack's hands may be, he's never strayed down that dark path. That's how he knows he doesn't deserve to die at the end of a noose come dawn tomorrow; there are others who warrant that dubious honor far more than he. But the commodore is set on it, there's no way out that Jack can see, and he figures that he'll soon discover firsthand whether or not hell exists. At that less than cheerful thought Jack turns his attention once more to the sliver of bone in his hand and the tantalizing, frustrating click of the tumblers within the cell door's lock. But he's distracted and discouraged and his thoughts soon wander to times long past, for the present is no great prize and the future looks to be worse. He imagines being aboard his Pearl again with the radiance of the tropical sun gilding his skin and the vast welcoming ocean spread out from horizon to horizon. In his dreams all that he has lost is returned to him and there's a quiet, dependable presence at his side. Bill Turner, steady in all the ways Jack is not and never will be. Bill, ten years dead if the talk Jack has heard is true, and he expects it is. Seems there was no way out for Bill, either, in the end. He tries not to think of Bill slowly rotting at the bottom of the ocean or all alone in the frigid wastes of hell. Bill deserved better than either of those wretched fates; he was a good man. And handsome, too, Jack remembers fondly, with his smooth tanned skin and fine-boned features, a craftsman's sturdy hands and those intense mahogany eyes. Jack sees him in his restless imaginings as clearly as if Bill stood before him... as clearly as... and then Jack is struck by a thought as intriguing as it is startling. Hurrying footsteps on the stairs catch his attention and he sprawls casually in the loose straw on the cold dirt floor, deliberately indifferent. His visitor is a fortuitous surprise indeed: the feisty young man from the smithy who had seemed so familiar. But now Jack knows why and he sends a silent thank-you to Bill, wherever he may be. Before the boy even opens his mouth, Jack knows that this is his way out. -end- |
