An errant sunbeam lasered through a dingy porthole, stirring Jonas from his fitful slumber and ripping him from the imaginary embrace of a bevy of buxom blondes. Blinking blearily and grumbling at the rude awakening, he glanced through the window and saw the sun fully up over the horizon.
“I guess I might as well get up and face yet another day in paradise,” he muttered sarcastically to himself. “So many coconuts, so little time. Or so much time. Too much time,” he continued, trailing off distractedly. “No. Can’t get discouraged. Pull yourself together Jonas. Gotta keep talking so I don’t get too lost in my head.”
Running his fingers through his unruly black hair, Jonas scooped up one of his few remaining pairs of mostly-intact underwear and ducked out through the opening in the ship’s hull. Trudging the familiar path from the wreckage of the S.S. Witvis to the beach, he casually stripped off and waded out into the beautiful Caribbean waters to get clean. Or at least as clean as salt water could get him. He’d long become accustomed to the salty residue that crystalized on his skin each day after his morning bath and laundry swims. Shaking himself dry, he donned the fresh underwear before pulling his battered cargo shorts up and retying the rope that he’d found to use as a replacement for his lost belt.
“At least I’m getting a good tan,” he said aloud, admiring his bronzed arms as he dragged the ragged shirt over his head. “Mary Ann will be so proud of me when I get back to the office. She always says I don’t know how to relax and enjoy the simple pleasures in life.” Turning back to regard his ramshackle homestead, he chuckled darkly. “Doesn’t get much simpler than this.”
Returning to the wreckage, he ran his fingers across the boat’s nameplate, as he did every day, and repeated his daily mantra.
“Today’s gonna be the day. It’s a good day for a rescue.” Continuing into the keeled-over ship, Jonas returned to the home he had fashioned from salvaged bits of wreckage. Since the night of the storm, he had managed to convert the topsy-turvy cabin into a cozy, albeit unconventional, living space.
Noting another morning in the waterlogged notebook he’d been using as a combination calendar, journal, and doodle pad, he grabbed a water bottle and set out to complete his morning activities before the heat of the day fully set in.
The only sound that disturbed the crashing of waves was Jonas’ voice, talking to himself to keep from going insane. At least, to keep himself from going more insane. You have to be a little bit nuts to survive on a deserted island for 57 days.
“It rained last night, so I’ve gotta start with the water collectors,” he said. “Hope the tarps didn’t get overloaded and fall over like last time.” Whistling with a facsimile of jauntiness, he inspected his collection of bright blue and orange tarps, admiring the pools of water in the center of each one. One at a time, he carefully lowered one corner from each tarp, draining the gathered fresh water into the various pots, buckets, and bottles that he had amassed in this area. “Excellent work, tarps,” he congratulated the setup. “Top notch performance. Way to go, team. You show those coconuts who’s the top dog in this competitive drink-based economy.”
After depositing the replenished stock of fresh water into the boat, he grabbed a ragged bedsheet and headed into the jungle. Working his way towards the center of the island, he gathered up several coconuts that had fallen to the ground. He carefully inspected each one before placing it into the sheet.
“Nice and brown, no holes, not rotten,” he said as he checked each one over. “Learned that the hard way, didn’t you? Yep. Old, dried-up coconut and moldy rotten coconut are even grosser than regular fresh coconut. Remember to tell Mary Ann that coconut will be banned from the office from now on. Never gonna eat another fucking coconut again once I get off this island. If I get off this island. No. When I get off this island.” Shaking his head violently, he returned to his search.
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Once he had enough for the day, he added some fallen palm fronds to his pile, hoping to fashion them into something that could keep the sun from shining in his eyes each morning. Using the sheet as a bag, he trudged back to his encampment burdened by his bountiful harvest.
* * * * *
As the sun headed back down towards the horizon that evening, Jonas dragged a seat cushion out from the boat and dropped it onto the beach. Settling onto the cushion, he took a moment to appreciate the natural beauty before him. Though he was probably being slowly driven mad by the days and weeks of enforced solitude, Jonas was occasionally able to recognize that not everything about this place sucked. Hell, some people might even pay a lot of money to have this kind of experience. Idiots, sure, but plenty of idiots have too much money to go with their too little sense.
“I mean, some people like beaches,” Jonas said. “And sand. Mary Ann certainly does. I knew I shouldn’t have let her convince me to spend my stupid mandatory sabbatical visiting islands. And beaches.” He shivered involuntarily. “Some secretary she is. Making me go places with sand. Can’t believe I agreed to this. No more sand vacations. Have to remember that when I get back to New York.”
Just as he was preparing to pack it up and head back to his hovel, Jonas spotted something in the distance. Outlined against the setting sun, the bleak sameness of the horizon was disturbed by an indistinct shape. Staring hard, his brain finally put together what his eyes were trying to tell him. A ship. There was a ship on the horizon. The first sign of humanity in almost two months.
Panicked, he ran back to the shipwreck, scrambling through the emergency supplies that he had cached by the entrance. Finding the case with the flare gun, he dashed back to the beach, eyes desperately scanning the horizon for the ship. “This better not be some kind of mirage,” he muttered to himself as he cracked open the barrel and slotted in the first flare. Cocking the hammer and pointing it up into the air in the direction of the ship, he squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the trigger. Underwhelmed by the pop and hiss of the flare, he quickly looked up to see the red flare arcing up over the water before slowly fading away with a soft bang. He immediately loaded another flare and fired it off in the same direction.
Time ticked by excruciatingly slowly, but then he heard it. Five faint blasts from a ship’s horn wafted over the waves. He’d done it. They’d seen his flares. They were coming. Weeping, he dashed back to the ship, gathering his most crucial supplies. Crucial for civilization, that is. They’d been totally useless here on the island. His wallet and passport. His phone with no battery and a shattered screen. The keys to his apartment in Manhattan. Just before dashing out of the boat for the last time, he remembered to grab his journal and shoved it into his back pocket.
Back on the beach, the ship was visibly closer. He stood there watching it slowly approach as the sun continued to sink and darkness encroached. He couldn’t make out the name of the ship, but he could tell that it was a battered old freighter, orange rust battling with flaking dark green paint as the primary color. But that didn’t matter to him. It was the most beautiful ship he’d ever seen.
Stopping in the distance, the large ship lowered a small boat with two people in it. The smaller boat swiftly motored across the waves towards Jonas, coasting expertly to a stop before running aground. A grizzled old man with piercing blue eyes and a close-cropped white beard hopped over the edge and waded to shore. Taking in Jonas’ shaggy hair and ragged, patchy beard, his battered and dirty clothes, and his deeply tanned skin, the man simply stared and gaped. After a moment, he pulled a battered captain’s hat off his head and extended a hand.
“Hello there, son. Looks like you could use a ride.”
“You’re real,” Jonas managed to gasp out, awash in relief. “I can’t believe you’re really real.” Tears running down his face unabated, he smiled broadly and then collapsed into the man’s arms, out cold.