Mirage

The captain's service hat blocked the intensity of the sun sinking into the Mediterranean. Streams of orange light dancing on the sea’s white caps up to and not a moment beyond the last line of the horizon reflected moving paintings onto the side of the yacht. The captain held his gaze against the day. 

It was his daily ritual. It kept him sane. After all, a captain was never meant to be in port for two years. But in those two years, he had dreamed of anything and everything. He spent hours on the upper deck. His eyes focused on the endless expanse just beyond the rocky shore. Perfectly centered between two large cliffs that made the crescent shape of the safe harbor that had become his prison.

A creature can only take so much of this confinement. Even if the smell of fresh bread, aged cheese, and a few fine cigars were readily available in town, none of it felt real. It was the food of purgatory. Transitory. The difference between house arrest and defending the castle. 

The captain at the top deck looking into the bright sea wondered when it would end. When would he feel sea spray again? Feel the uneasy first steps of a rolling sea with a powerful swell again?

The captain reached into his jacket and pulled a metal tube out from his breast pocket. He popped the lid of the tube and let a cigar fall into his palm. He thumbed the inscription on the tube. Scheherazade, it said. Scheherazade Scheherazade Scheherazade. Three times in embossed gold lettering.