Washed Ashore

Washed Ashore

A man wakes to find himself beached on a lonely island in the middle of a vast and endless sea. He remembers nothing about how he got there, but finds solace in his companion. He hopes to get home someday, back to a life he may never know again.

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“That coconut will be the death of me.” Roger stared up into the unforgiving sun rays, looking for an algorithmic approach up to breakfast. “If I don’t have some milk, the carp, or whatever that is, won’t go down smooth as I need it to.” He casted a shadow with his hand on his forehead, and then put his hands on his hips in resignation. His wrinkled, leather face screwed up into a look of blank amazement, as if he couldn’t imagine the world he was living in.

“There is no sense in giving up on something you haven’t begun,” said his faithful companion.

“Right, right, right.” He looked over at the shining face of the one that has saved him from insanity and imminent death. “You know what, Alice? You complete me.” With the effort of a younger man and the speed and decisiveness of a koala, he wrapped his arms around the long, thin, organic pole, digging his fingers into the softness that didn’t exist. Roger awkwardly rose upward, a struggle at a time, and reached near the top of the tree.

Alice was staring up with laser focus, calculating and observing each movement. “If you reach now, be sure to arch your back for balance.”

It became apparent that Roger was out of breath, in a state of desperation. He extended his arm out sideways and gripped the brown, furry sphere, twisting and shaking it. After a length of time that only Alice knew, the fruit snapped free and gravity allowed it to drop to the ground, hitting the pristine, white hot sand with a thud.

Roger worked his way down, with his rear end sticking out. He was still in the climbing posture even when he reached the bottom of the tree, at a 12 inch distance from the sizzling surface. His feet dug into the loose grains of the quartz beach. He turned around and gave Alice a self-satisfied, wide smile, closing his eyes and wiping the pain from his calloused hands. “And that’s how it’s done,” he said, picking up the product of his labor. “Too bad only one of us will enjoy this scrumptious specimen. I know you’d like it, but we both know it wouldn’t agree with your delicate sensibilities.”

Alice shrugged to change emotions and created a noise that sounded much like a lone cheerleader supporting the all-star quarterback with a joyful pitch. “Woo hoo! I bet it will taste better than that mushroom did last night. It was too dark to see that it was indeed covered in swine feces. I should have looked it over better. The good news is your stomach and intestines are nice and flushed from spewing for three hours.”

Roger raised the coconut in the air, and with a grunt he heaved it into a jagged rock. With some work, he managed to open it perfectly in such a way that it was a veritable flask filled with what he deemed as the sweetest juice on earth. He tasted the raw nectar, a flavor that only mother nature could provide, spilling not a drop as he carefully emptied half of the container. “The rest of the milk will be a proper washer down for that fish.” He looked over at the small flicker of red and orange flame. There was a makeshift skewer through the poor animal, which had not long since taken it’s last breath under water. The brown of it’s hot flesh made his mouth water. His eyes were like a child’s on Christmas morning, the lust for protein evident on his face. “C’mon, Alice. Join me for a prayer. Only God can do what He has done to us.”

”For us you mean?” Alice always questioned him and his poor choice of words.

“Huh?” He wasn’t paying attention to anything but the feeling of soft flavor between his teeth. Chewing and spitting, he spent 23 minutes of attention on breakfast. The wind calmed his mind, speaking secret whispers only he could hear.

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“Wake up.” Alice had a monotone way about her these days. Her sleek body was a bronze that most women would empty their pocket books for, but she was always looking ahead, not behind.

Roger kicked at the air in a bicycle motion, pushing the sand he was using as a mattress, as if to make some kind of impression of anguish on the land. He yawned and tried to wipe the puffiness out of his eyes, knowing it was selfish of him to sleep in the middle of the day.

“Must I remind you of the daily chores?” Alice’s voice was playfully disapproving.

“Chores shmores.” He laughed in surprise of himself. “God, sch’mores would do the trick,” he said as he licked his lips.

She sighed. “Where do you get such enthusiasm in such a squalid place?”

He changed his expression in an instant, as if startled by the sound of a stormy day’s first strike of thunder. He dropped his tone. “I think you’re right about most things, you know. I understand you were born differently than I was. In your world, before we wound up here, things were awarded to you as a birthright. In mine, you have to make the best of a bad situation. The only reason I laugh, even still, is to force myself into believing there is something left to live for.” He looked up at the sky in introspection, and back down at her. “I have come so far with that, that I almost prefer our life together as it is now, in this solitary speck on a satellite image that may never be viewed.” Tears began to appear as a thin lining over his eyes, and he smiled.

Alice walked over to him, laying her hand on his shoulder, and said “You’re a poet. But that doesn’t change the fact that my experience on this island has been different than yours. I have been working toward the goal of self-improvement since I was brought into existence, it seems. One day, we will find the improbable solution to our problem of being stranded here, and when that happens, I will pursue my dreams. I have dreams, too, you know.” She went back to her default pose and stood very still. Silence in this moment made her seem superior to Roger, and everything else. She then turned to look at the vast, blue, endless horizon. There was no end to her ever analytical nature. In contrast to him, it was as if she were the provider and sole caretaker.

Roger followed the path that her gaze was creating. “Time to go for a swim.” He stepped into the warm waters that were simultaneously approaching then running from him in a pattern that made sense. In this moment, he had a purpose. His athletic body slowly receded several hundred feet from the shore. As he was pushing the water behind him, the salt entered his nose and mouth. He took a deep breath, filling his sinewy rib-cage with the air that both spoke and nourished him, and turned upside down. He descended into the purple oblivion. He was used to opening his eyes underwater. The sting was never pleasant though.

Alice was patiently waiting his return to her sight. As soon as she zoomed her vision to the spot where he disappeared, he emerged. He held up his arm, and in his hand was something that looked like a stick of dynamite. She knew what is was. She always knew what things were.

Roger paddled himself with his unorthodox form to the shallows. He waded through the gentles waves, looking down at his feet. As soon as he met Alice, he held out the object and said “This. Where has this been?”

“Incoming.”

Roger, with a lightening quick response, looked back into the depths. “What is it? A friend of ours?”

She laughed, and said “Sand shark. The cartilage makes for great jerky, but the rub is in the fight for it.”

He shrugged and began walking toward the alcove, motioning her to follow. “Who is the poet now? Anyways, it looks like fortune has given us a treasure today. A chance

to go home.”

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“That trip wears on my bones.” They stood at the top of a precipice in the middle of a rich and ominously dense collage that displayed every shade of green imaginable. The top of the hill led to a stage that overlooked an audience of seagulls and orange light rays of a setting sun that was tasked to perform the same motion, day in and day out. His stomach felt like it contained a bed-sheet on a clothes line, waving with unpredictability, violent and forgiving at the same time. He looked down over the cliff with caution, remembering all the times he wanted to jump. He couldn’t do it. Dying meant he would abandon his only friend. He made a squinting and serious face that showed his regret for all his past sins, the ones that Alice never knew; the ones that scarred his soul. The ones that led him here.

He held the smoke bomb in his hand, and looked at Alice with apprehension. “Are you sure this is the best time to use this?” He was quizzing her with a slight fear that she would make him sound foolish.

“The assumption, based on the outside of that container being blue, is that the smoke will be blue. We need contrast against the sky, remember?” The sound of her voice made him feel an ease that spread to his chest with a vibration of heat, comforting his worried thoughts.

“I mean is today a good time to set this baby off? We’ve never seen anything out there. How will this moment be any different from all the other days when nothing would see it?” He began to get anxious as the feeling of inner peace was leaving his body.

“This moment is as good as any. The odds are the same all the time.” She nodded to him, prompting him to open the canister.

He pulled it apart with one quick motion and dropped it on the ground. “Damn! That thing is hot!”

There was a pylon of blue smoke billowing up into the sky. The air was motionless enough to allow the color to rise in a thick, unified line, spreading only slightly as it moved into the atmosphere above them. They waited for hours, watching the smoke pour out. The grass around the device was charred.

Roger lowered the corners of his mouth, and then said “How about that. It’s blue.”

The fuse burned, and burned, and burned. Roger was resting against a gray, smooth boulder, enjoying the show from an unconscious state, whistling through his lips at every exhale. The night had settled softly. The rhythm of the sounds gave Alice the idea to fill the empty spaces with a tune she knew from long ago. With the chirping of the crickets, the ensemble created a magnificent scene of music, color, and a palpable sense of hope.

Without warning, the stick suddenly started spitting chunks of streaming light in all directions with great force. The crackling roused them both, as Roger simultaneously jarred awake, stood up, and dove behind the rock. His comrade shook with attentiveness and scrambled to a spot next to him.

“What is this!” shouted Roger.

“It must be the end of the chemical reaction that produced the smoke. Cover your mouth, the fumes could be toxic.”

The explosion of fire became more and more intense, shooting flaming sizzlers into the forest behind them. It suddenly fizzed out and the bubbles of plastic material slowly oozed into the black divot in the ground it had made. They looked at one another, and slowly turned around to see countless embers trailing away into the tropical quagmire below.

“Well, shows over. That was climactic to say the least,” said Roger. “I don’t know if that did any good whatsoever toward our cause, Alice, but damned if we didn’t try. So do you think anyone saw all that?”

Alice was not looking at Roger. Instead she was gleaming down at the forest. There was a shine in her eye that let Roger know he should be excited about something. She pointed down to the depths. “We might be in luck, my friend. I can see a small fire down there started from one of those embers.”

“Umm... how is a forest fire a sign of good luck?”

“Roger... it means our flare has upgraded itself... the fire will spread, and when it does, this whole island is going to burn.”

Roger’s eyes grew wide at the bellowing flames below. “Dear God.”

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By morning, the place they came to know as home was a living, churning inferno. They had made their way back to the beach, and now both stood with their backs to the sea staring at the monstrous sight.

“If there was anybody looking, they’d definitely see this.” Roger was in a trance. He could feel the heat from the forest and hear the screams and howls of animals in the distance.

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They waited for a week and finally the orange-red turned to a giant twister of black smoke. Days passed and the island was reborn as a burnt wasteland of matchsticks and soot. More was visible than ever before, and the expanse of the real estate exposed an ominous void of life. Roger felt a longing for what had been lost, leaving an ache of emptiness in his chest that would only be relieved if something good materialized from the destruction.

The two castaways found themselves pacing back and forth on the forsaken beaches of a brutalized land that would not show compassion for them. Roger was showed nervousness and depression - anxiety and hopelessness - but with a shred of hope that someone would come save them.

“We knew we might be here for the rest of our lives. And now... now we made the place uninhabitable. I can’t believe this.” He rubbed his mangy hair and looked at his friend. “I mean, someone should have come by now, right?”

Alice remained stoic. Her strength was the backbone of their survival, and the only means to a thread of stability.

“Roger...you know how I have great sight, right?”

“Yeah, you’re amazing, you are. But what is your point?” He tried not to show his frustration, but his patience was worn thin by the time bomb of their lives in peril as the resources of the island were almost completely gone. He thought of this and many things, but wouldn’t dare bring them up in conversation. He knew Alice had already considered the situation in depth, and he was afraid she might reveal an insight that might terrify him into shock and catatosis. His mind was fragmented and scattered in all directions, and it was evident in his pale face and worried eyes - as if he had been up for days trying to make sense of something that could not be solved. The riddle of the meaning of it all was staring at him every day. His awareness of himself had never been so high. He was not used to looking in the mirror.

“Look out there, my friend. Look out at the sea. Way out there.” She pointed in the direction of the limitless beyond that became a portrait more than a reality, a sense of decor more than an actual physical piece of space.

“I don’t see a damn thing. Is this a joke? I can’t laugh anymore.”

She instructed him to stare out into the horizon. After a while he spoke the words he had been waiting to say for what seemed like a lifetime.

“We’re saved, my love. We’re saved.”

There was a ship in the distance, smoke in the pale vision where the sky blends with the line of water. It came closer and closer. The time had come for the savior of sea to show mercy upon the marooned. The creator had been listening. The lights were still on, and Roger hugged Alice with a warmth that electrified his soul.

“We made it baby,” he said.

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The captain of the large commercial shipment container carrier had provided them a sense of human nature that was casual, healthy, and real. Roger was alone with him while Alice had gone inside the compartment to talk with the technicians. They were both on new terms with life, both on the upswing again.

Roger looked at the captain with bewilderment, seeing his flesh and shaking his head, smiling with a tired grin that portrayed the epitome of a man at the end of his rope of energy.

The sea captain didn’t say much to him at first. But he put his hand on Roger’s shoulder and said “Man you’ve been through the ringer. We saw that fire a ways back and had to check it out, if only to take pictures and sell ‘em to the news folk. Way I figure it, someone been lookin’ out for you.

“And my girl, Alice. I couldn’t have made it without her. She was my rock.”

The captain had a grizzly look of contemplation. He remained silent, giving Roger’s eyes a flash, then looking into them with care. “She?” he said, puzzled.

“Yeah I think I might marry her. Only problem is, after the crash, I don’t remember much about my life before. I might have a wife and a family for all I know. That would be something wouldn’t it? To fall in love with a woman on a deserted island, thinking I’d never escape. Now that we have, I the one thing I can rely on is her still, after all we been through together.”

“Roger, is it? Listen Roger... when we get land side I have some people you can talk to. They’re real specialists. Maybe they can sort you out.” The captain had only humane consideration in his voice, it was smooth and easy to listen to.

Roger was too tired to be offended, and the way the man came across to him was as a good friend. “I would like to get my memories back. And maybe Alice can get some help too. I can take that. She has been so strong.”

The captain looked gravely at Roger. “Alice will not need the care you will need, brother. Maybe just a tune up.”

“What do you mean... ‘tune up’?”

“Roger...” the man said softly, “She’s not human, buddy. Robots don’t need stuff like we do. You’re tired. Go rest, friend... I think you may be delirious. Nothin’ some fresh coconut water and tilapia won’t fix though.”

Roger twitched and said, “Okay... thank you sir,” walking with him to the safety of the hull.