The Lonely Island

       The sun shines down onto my body, biting my already burned hide. My mouth feels salty and dry, so I get some stream water from one of my coconut shells. Life here hasn't been easy. It's already been two weeks and I haven't seen a single sign of a rescue crew. But I keep my wits, sure that someone will find me. I've read books like this. A man gets stranded on an island, just like I am. All of them made it off alive. Then the thought crosses my mind. No one tells stories about the ones who die because no one knows about them. Will that be my fate? I'm certain that many people have been in my situation and perished. They are just forgotten. That's the end of it. These thoughts haunt me every night that I'm forced to lie down in the sand under my small hut and attempt to fall asleep.

I awoke the next morning to an odd smell. I caught more of it when I walked down towards the beach where I discovered that I while I was thinking so deeply about my existence last night, I had forgotten to bring in yesterday's fish from the drying rocks. Now they laid there, rotten and half eaten by crabs and gulls. Great. I had one job! I had to gather other food for the day, like berries and fruit and even a lizard I found. I need to learn to just live and roll with it instead of stopping and analyzing everything like it matters so much. BUT I'll always have a plan, I won't be an aimless wreck.

The smoke signal was coming along decently. I still needed a few more limbs for the backbone of the "P". By the next day I had it burning and I had to say, it looked like the movies. Hopefully my job well done would catch the attention of a plane or a boat nearby. My luck was soon going to grow. For that very day, I was saved. A cruise ship was sailing just a mile off the shore. At the time, I was in the forest, looking for more wood for the signal.

So after two weeks and a day, I was off that deserted lonely island. I was quite proud of myself too. I had survived. Prospered even. And now I was on my way back to my home in the United States.



Or so I thought.



The oil made the water turn a sickly color. I couldn't see the blood but I knew I was swimming in gallons of it.  Wreckage was all around me, slowly sinking into the depths of the icy ocean. I climbed to a table that was floating right off what used to be the starboard bow. It had been set for dinner that was going to be served in about 20 minutes.

I didn't think about my luck. I didn't think I just made it off an island now I'm going to die on the way home. What I thought was what now. What's my next move? There was no sense in staying with the boat. The bomber plane had blown it to bits, and I couldn't find any other survivors. That was when I realized my luck. I had defied death when my plane went down and I floated onto the island. I had defied it for two weeks by staying alive on the island. And now, ten minutes after being saved, it seemed I was the lone survivor of a horrific suicide attack by what I presumed was a Japanese kamikaze pilot. But I could think about that later. Right now I had to get away from this oil, in case it was ignited by the burning former cruise ship. Come on come on. Think of a plan. It seemed my only option was. . .




I must go back to the island.













B. Kennedy