Don't underestimate a super pilot

How still the night is; nothing sounds alive. Now is the hour when children in their homes are a-bed; their lips bright-browned with the good-night chocolate, and their tongues drowsily searching for belated crumbs housed insecurely on their shining cheeks. Compare with them the children on this boat about to walk the plank. Split my infinitives, but 'tis my hour of triumph!

[The words sound clear and true when spoken at midnight on the 23rd, barely hindered by the effects of time on the human memory. Their rhythm is dictated by Ash's footsteps, going back and forth in some anonymous inn room.]

And yet some disky spirit compels me now to make my dying speech, lest when dying there may be no time for it. All mortals envy me, yet better perhaps for Hook to have had less ambition! O fame, fame, thou glittering bauble, what if the very—

[The monologue stops suddenly, as if interrupted. Or not interrupted, as it is.]

...It's really not the same when you're just reciting the text by yourself. Are there any Smees around? Or Smee-rgles, I guess would be the case here.

...You know, the stars are a thousand times more beautiful viewed from space. Especially when seen from a room fully covered in windows; from there you can truly realize that we're all just floating in the sky, surrounded by millions upon millions of burning lights.

[The waves can be heard as Ash speaks. They can be heard better when he stops for a few moments.]

But the sun... The sunrise, the sunset. Nothing quite matches a sunset seen with both of your feet on the ground. Nothing deserves to be shared more than the dawn slowly spreading over the earth.

[The sand shifts as the wind blows, but Ash does not move. For an instant, his whole world is quiet and peaceful.]

...Still five hours to go, and no one to share them with. I guess that's fine, too.