Marooned On An Island

DAY 1

He could faintly hear the seagulls screaming from afar. The leisurely melodious but somber sound of waves hitting the rocks kept replaying.

Harvey tried to open his eyes, but the sluggishness and heat made him feeble. He knew eventually he would wake up from this dream and would have to get ready to go to office.

He had numerous errands aligned that needed his attention today. But as Harvey wondered why was it so hot despite the room AC on the full-blown mode, he felt dampness swamping his bed.

His eyes opened instantly as he tried to jump out of his bed but instead of his bedroom in California, he found himself facing an endless azure blue ocean, its waves hitting the rocks with its wrath, where he was so unpretentiously sleeping.

At first, he thought he was still dreaming but the cold sprinkles brought him to a fully conscious state. He was wet, and he was certainly not in his bedroom.

“What the hell? Where am I?” Harvey blurted so loud that he couldn’t recognize his own coarse voice. His throat hurt as he coughed out oodles of sand from his mouth.

Harvey looked around flustered. It was a lot to process. How did he turn up here? What happened last night? He sat down on the white sandy beach, his head in his hands.

The morning was humid, and it made him weaker. He realized his mouth was parched and his lips were dry. He needed some water and he needed it soon.

He tried hard to recollect last night’s incidents and he remembered that he was rewarded a free pass of a cruise by his office as a top performer. It was dated yesterday and that’s how he ended up on the sea.

He also recalled his colleague and competitor Tom to be with him on the cruise. They drank to their heart’s desire and danced with beautiful girls who were dressed up like mermaids. Tom was with him the whole-time except when Harvey went to take a leak. And all the details thereafter were hazy.

“Tom? What happened to Tom? And what about the ship? And all the people?” Harvey tried standing up, but he was weak in the knees. He mustered up all his strength and began limping on the beach nevertheless. His legs wobbled, and his hands shook. He checked himself for any cuts and scrapes but apart from a wounded forehead, he felt fine.

The cut was deeper than he first supposed, his head ringed and buzzed every now and then. It was more important to find others, he reckoned. He could rest when he found somebody else too.

Harvey called out to Tom, to anyone who probably washed ashore like him but couldn’t find any traces of humans ever setting foot in this place. Completely worn out and badly in need of some water, he sat down, exhausted. But where could he find drinkable water on a lonely beach he pondered.

He had read somewhere or watched on TV perhaps that there is rain water collected in the small holes around the rocky beaches. So, he came back to where he started off and began searching for small potholes. Luckily it was monsoon and he did find some dirty, filled with sand but fit to drink water in some ditches near the rocks. He never knew until this moment the water could taste so sweet.

He drank invigoratingly as if it was nectar given to him by the Gods. When he could stomach no more, he finally sat down, gazing into the endless ocean, contemplating where could he possibly be.

His gaze rested upon something military green, half-buried in sand, a water bottle protruding from the side pocket. It looked familiar. Gathering courage one more time, he hobbled towards it. As suspected, it was his backpack, he had brought with him on the cruise. He found some processed food, which for now, satiated his grumbling belly, but the phone he found was damaged beyond repair.

He felt overwhelmed by this perilous circumstance and was busy exploring his options to get rescued from this lonely planet, as he named it, when the nearing sundown brought him back to reality.

The seagulls had stopped screeching, the ocean appeared treacherously scheming to engulf him while he looked the other way. He wasn’t sure if this place was swarming with wild animals. He needed a shelter to spend the night and some fire would be good. All the matches he had in his backpack were soggy and useless now.

DAY 2

Harvey was up long before the first ray broke at the tang ermine skyline. He had spent his night looking over his shoulder. Every small noise brought his heart to his mouth, so he was glad it was dawn. The fire he lit last night with the help of a rock and a stick, still burned. The huge bough on which he spent the night wasn’t very comfortable, his body ached all over. First thought he had was to keep the fire burning so he could boil some water to make it fit to drink; also, since he couldn’t spend another two hours igniting another stick.

Once he was done with that, he decided to explore the island, to find any traces of human existence and some food for his rumbling stomach. Harvey followed the beach and decided not to get inside the wilderness just yet. To his surprise the beach seemed to circle around the island, and he wondered whether he would finally end up reaching the place he started from.

After about half a day’s strenuous tread, he found some fruits he could eat. The rocky terrain surrounded most part of the beach which was a dwelling to sea creatures like crabs and turtles fearlessly strutting around the rocks. He grabbed a crab and broke its head with a stone, the supper was going to be rich tonight.

He retraced his steps following his own trail so, he doesn’t get lost in some unidentified more dangerous part of the island.

The sudden jerk from behind the thick gloomy excessively dense bushes made him stop in his tracks. He waited, holding his breath, trying not to blink and lose focus. He just had a thick log in his hand in the name of a weapon, to push around the bushes and make way.

The low growl was enough for him to realize he was dealing with a wild dog, a coyote or even worse - a wolf. He did not know what to do? Should he run, or quickly ascent a tree? Maybe he should try and set his territory, he had seen on TV, the canines respected territories… and for that he needed to pee. He finally took the risk and started pissing around the area he was standing on.

The wild dog came out slowly, sniffing and snarling, gazing deeply into his prey’s eyes. It took every ounce of courage for Harvey to stand his ground and not run screaming into the other direction, no matter how much his heart tried jumping out his chest. The dog snuffled around some more, as if making sure everything was in its place. He gave a long accusing look to Harvey and went back the way it came out, into the thick jungle.

Harvey reached the same tree he had slept on last night, but he couldn’t dare to do that tonight. The edges were rough, and the branch was craggy, so he took a pointy rock and started expanding a medium sized hole in the trunk to his own size, to spend his night in. It turned out to be a daunting task to create a hole inside a tree with a mere stone. Harvey searched in his backpack and found a Swiss knife, but it wasn’t going to get finished in a day.

He will have to spend the night on the uncomfortable tree, perhaps a few more nights.

DAY 10

By now it was clear to Harvey that the island was completely deserted. No human had ever set foot in this God forsaken abode. Even the animals were missing except for Wild Dogs, rabbits, birds, honeybees, and wasps. He took strolls into the wild every day, expecting to find something new, but apart from trees and swamps, there was nothing much here. Harvey barely escaped sinking into one such marsh on his third day. Wild dogs sometimes crossed his path, but he wasn’t afraid of them any longer, he had learnt to piss them away or sometimes, he would keep a fish handy and offer it to them as bribe to spare his life.

The dogs, the rabbits, seemed to like his company. They gathered around the area he kept plucked fruits or fishes he caught from the ocean. Harvey was here for ten days now, without any human contact, without anyone to talk to, without civilization. He had gotten thinner with hair full of gunk and a beard now covering his entire face, whatever left was dirty or covered in red blistering mosquito bites. His legs and arms were infected with insect bites and wounds were festering. The clothes he once wore were nothing but tattered rags barely covering his privates.

He had made an ensign using his white shirt to draw attention of any ships or helicopters passing by, but so far, not one had stumbled upon this part of earth, as if it didn’t exist in the maps.

He spent most of his time counting days on a rock and hunting fishes. He worked hard at finishing his cave on the tree bough, so he could feel safe while sleeping. He ogled at the wilderness at night and slept during the day.

Only taciturn beings for company, he would tell them stories of his home, his family, his deepest desires, his fears, his torments, his passions, and his lovers. He longed to hear a human tongue, even a “Hey Harv ” would suffice, just a word. The animals would just gape at him, as if they understood his inner turmoil, his longing to just fly out of this nightmare.

Sometimes he thought of the last day of his contact with people, his friend Tom and he would wonder if it was Tom who managed to throw him off board while he drank and lost his mind. After all, it was him who had forced drinks after drinks on Harvey. Tom was more than a colleague, he was an arch nemesis…a cut throat and ruthless competitor in Harvey’s professional life. They came head on numerous times, he snatched countless key accounts from Harvey, but Harvey being Harvey, never took a serious notice of his covetous and ambitious partner. And of course, he was facing the consequences. He maybe wanted Harvey dead, but somehow God saved him…this island saved him.

Day 25

Harvey had learnt to braid ropes from the branches and hemp. He also created a stone axe, which he used to cut branches with an intention to make a raft that could probably carry him back to some nearby island and he might find civilization again.

One day when Harvey was busy reshaping a wooden bucket to carry water from the small ponds he had discovered inside of the forest, he heard a faint sound. Initially it buzzed like a dozen of wasps but then it became clearer, louder, familiar… it was a ship sailing far off on the horizon of the sea. When it came into his view, he couldn’t move for a second, but he knew he had to do something soon… the ship slowly grew smaller and somehow, Harvey couldn’t budge when a dog barking furiously broke his trance.

And he ran ferociously, he ran with all the force he could muster…he ran because his life depended on it…he ran because he couldn’t take the loneliness anymore… but to no avail… he shouted till he couldn’t any more, he ran back and forth into all the directions, he hoisted his shirt tied on a lean branch ardently… but no one noticed him, he was like an insect from this far, the roaring engines made it impossible for them to hear his bristled, cracked voice.

Disgruntled…distraught…he scooped down to his knees… then on to his back… eyes open into the wide blue amber sky…. There was no hope for him now…he knew he had lost his only chance for rescue, he knew he was never going home.

He did nothing for the next few days…all he did was sulk and sleep. He tried cutting his veins once, to get rid of the life he had come to hate now, but since his weapons weren’t sharp enough, he failed here too…miserably.

Day 46 or is it 52?

The sun illuminated too bright for Harvey’s eyes. He shaded them with his hand, so he could see clearly. His torso had gotten thinner, rib cage evidently moving under his pale thin skin as he carried the wooden bucket to fetch some drinkable water from the pond. Lost in train of thoughts, Harvey still conjectured, what could he have done wrong to deserve such a fate, to be left behind, to be forgotten. By now, he was convinced there was no rescue coming for him. He was on his own. These fifty-two days in the wilderness taught him what his twenty-eight safe years of being couldn’t – survival of the fittest.

So, he was hell bent on surviving the sentence he was served. He resumed building the raft after lamenting and cussing his misfortune for three days. How else could he have overcome the melancholy status quo he had gotten trapped in. He needed a distraction , needed to be busy. The raft was almost complete, it took him twenty-four days to build this small wooden carrier which could only take his weight along with some food and water.

Harvey could set sail today, the sun shone bright in the morning sky…the screams of seagulls were deafening but a welcome respite from a dreary quiet he had come to despise. He had caught two seagulls and kept them in a wooden carton with two holes. They would be needed to determine if there was land or a ship nearby, if not, they would fly back to him. In another such carton he kept a few rabbits, so he doesn’t get too weak in the middle of nowhere. He filled his sack that he made with ropes with fruits and loaded a wooden container filled with drinkable water.

Pushing the raft towards the ocean, Harvey took a long look at the island he called lonely planet, it didn’t seem so bad now that he had figured out the survival techniques. But he was a human being and he needed companionship of humans more than anything else even if it meant falling into another ambitious trap or a heart break, it was all worth it, Harvey had understood that now.

Harvey finally started sailing away from the island he had come to call his home. He did not know why, but his eyes watered and he found splitting from this place tougher then he reckoned. The beach was empty with a couple of dogs sneaking up on the food Harvey left purposefully for them. The tree he made his cave in was billowing with the cold strong winds, as if bidding adieu.

He kept his gaze affixed on the island, as the raft carried him farther from the land. When he was in enough deep sea he took the flat paddle, and began rowing towards the horizon, as if surrendering himself and his fate to its mercy.

The journey he knew was tough and there was no guarantee that he would succeed. He might reach some inhabited land or might just get lost in the sea. A shark, a storm or simply too much sun could end his life anytime. He did not know how long he would be sailing or when will he culminate into a better situation, maybe never…but he had to try… he had to believe that he would succeed. So, he rowed and rowed and rowed… into the deep blue immeasurable sea.