The Island
The
Island.
A.
Octavia
The farthest back I can remember was the way the
sea off of the deck railing looked so blue. Deep, soul-crushing blue.
I remember thinking that if I stared too long, it was going to be
impossible to pull away from. Nothing else existed before the blue:
not the ship, not why I was there, not who I was... just the memory
of my hands on the rail, watching the sea stretch all the way out to
the horizon.
I've been able to pick up some clues from
wreckage that washes up on shore. Usually after a good storm or a
strong tide. It's only fragments-- bits and pieces that sheared away
from the hull of the broken ship that hovered out past the breakers.
Early on I was tempted chance swimming against the riptide, but just
as I started to wade out, I saw a few bodies wash up on shore.
Whatever lived in the water between me and the answers I craved
didn't seem to have a discriminating palette. Needless to say, I
never tried again.
I used to bury all the bodies after
matching up the pieces as best I could. I’ve spent countless days
digging up the loose interior sand until it turned into soil. In the
end, it just took took too damn long. The tide would shift and the
bodies I couldn't carry or drag up off the shoreline would wash out
again. That's when I built the pyre. I recorded every detail I could
into a kind of ledger I built. I still carry some of the flotsam, I
still dig, but I save it for special occasions. It isn't favoritism,
mind you-- it's weakness. I can't burn children. I just can't.
So
far my ledger has three hundred seventy names, descriptions of
clothing, marks, missing limbs… Details--as many as I can stomach.
The graveyard has sixty four and every day I watch the horizon. I
gave up on rescue a long time ago and settled in my heart that I was
going to die here. Someday. Every morning when I wake up I tell
myself it's not today. Never today. I won't stop saying it, and I
won't make a mistake. When Death finally does get around to me, when
my hourglass empties, He better bring friends. A lot of God-damned
friends because I am not going quietly.
Anthropomorphic
personification. It's a long-winded way of explaining how we as human
beings make difficult concepts simple: a way to impart human traits
so we can equalize ourselves. We call a storm ‘mean,’ or the
tides ‘viscous,’ or like how I call the things swimming among the
shoals ‘sinister.’ It's Death in a black robe tapping the sand
out of my hourglass just so he doesn't have to wait quite so long.
There are days when I swear I can hear his fingers, his bones tapping
away at my time.
The island has its fair share of
character flaws, too. It took a bit longer than the shoals or the
weather to nail down, but I got there in the end. I
antholomophicized it. See, its knocked me down, time and time again,
just to see if I would decide to get back up. It’s testing me, but
I refuse to give it any satisfaction. Whever it acts up, I just fix
my hair and tell it it hits like a bitch. I should know-- it takes
one to know one.
I've found quicksand, scattered pools of
it. After one or two sand baths I started to scatter rocks wherever I
went to mark my trails. I used to carry rope, but it was more of a
pain that it was worth so I only do it now if I plan to branch out
and explore new terrain. Among other amenities: I found a sulfur
spring, a pool of what looks like boiling Mercury, and a bottomless
pit big enough across to swallow a whale. Birds roost among the rocks
around the edge, and I've seen bats fly out at dusk. It happens like
clockwork every night, except when they feel a storm coming. They
know, somehow. Atmospheric pressure, maybe. A subtle shifting of the
wind...
For the record: I've developed a strong distaste
for bananas and coconut. Even if I sprinkle in some crab or fish.
Raw, roasted, sauteed soup, kababs-- I've eaten them in every
conceivable way and after all this time, they just tastes like
cardboard now. Sometimes it's refined cardboard, but still cardboard.
That being said, I'm not fond of starving.
I'd really like
to say my time on the Island has been a Disneyland experience. I’d
practically kill for some whimsical jaunt where I crashed ashore, had
a musically choreographed montage of struggling to cope, and then at
the end of the song I’d flash forward to where I've overcome
adversity, mastered the elements and befriended the local animals.
I'd like to say that. I could so see myself as an uber-sarcastic
Tarzan, or a less-than-kind Jane Goodall, but in case you missed it
before-- that island hits like a bitch.
The monkey's were
mean little shits, too. If you ever got between one of them and it's
tribe, they'd scream, scratch, and bite like a pack of hyperactive
little savages. They howled like wolves at every full moon-- I'm
assuming because they're pissed off about the big nightlight in the
sky. They're wicked fast, too, like flies you can't ever swat; and
they’re smart little fuckers. I had to keep finding new and
evermore innovative ways to lock up my food stores because they can
problem-solve. The little bastards watch and learn.
I’m
assuming life’s not all sunshine and roses here for them, though.
Some kind of jaguar hunts them. Thankfully I've never had the
occasion to see it in the flesh, but I have seen its spoor and the
occasional faint tracks. The monkeys become communally silent
whenever they feel it. This might land me on the bad karma list, but
I'd be lying if I said those silent nights didn't make me smile a
little bit.
It was about three weeks in that these five
materials crates washed ashore. It was a bit of a shock because there
wasn't any kind of storm the night before. The ‘crates’ were
these kind of big, shiny, metallic tubs. It took me all day to drag
them above the tide line, and then another two or three to figure out
how to get them open. The keypads were toast but at least the seals
looked intact.
In
the end it was worth it. The first crate washed out of one of the
shore-leave storerooms, or up from one of in the main holds of the
ship: I managed to unpack a few spear guns, some fishing spears to go
with them, a handful of face snorkeling masks, flippers, and my
personal favorite: some knives in little rubber sheaths that I keep
strapped to both my calf and my forearm now. (I broke three blades
and dulled two more to the point of peanut butter spreaders before I
figured out how to re-sharpen them.)
The
second crate was full of canvas: lifeboat covers judging by the size
and the shape. They had the massive ship logo all up front and
center. They were the same off-white color as the hull with a blue,
green, and red 'A L L' overlapping at the center. There were tie
lines made of nylon cabling that came in really handy for collecting
water and making tent canopies.
The last three crates were
empty. I remember being so livid at first. All the time and effort
spent getting them open, wasted-- and on what? Empty boxes? Big,
metal, ...sturdy... empty...boxes. In hindsight ,it was probably the
best damn thing that ever washed ashore. I turned them into
multi-function toolboxes that alternated between
rather-uncomfortable-storm-shelters, rainwater collection tanks, or
food lockers that kept my spoils safe from the aforementioned little
simian shits.
Primates aside, I try to view every day is a
gift. Some days were easier than others, and I don't tend to dwell
on the past much. I mean, sure I wander around from time to time, I
take notes, and I accept clues as they appear, but I don't hunt
backwards. I promised myself I wouldn't. I refused to waste time
actively searching for answers that wouldn’t alter my current
state. The future was something to plan for, to be prepared for: I
could accept that. Looking for salvation, or some meaning to a life
I don't have anymore…? That kind of thinking wasn't going to keep
thirst at bay, or fill my stomach when I got hungry. I took my gift
as graciously as I could, and I tried my hardest to enjoy my present.
There was an incredible amount of beauty on the island. It was
really kind of hard to miss once I stepped back from the constant
anxiety of life and death. My first weeks were chock-full of opening
my eyes, and then opening my eyes again. I had to take in everything
in that I could by mapping, scouting, not dying, and then remember to
take it all in again. I marked trails and paths, I copied my notes
onto some of the canvas with some volcanic rock I crushed up and
mixed with coconut milk. I penned out everything with a little
pointed stick and then stitched it all together afterwards like some
kind of shipwrecked Mary Shelly.
I
learned two lessons from that: the first was that the island wasn't
nearly as small as I thought it was. It took me sixteen days to walk
the perimeter. I mean, sure, I wasn't exactly trying to make good
time, but that's still a lot of freaking coastline. I mapped three
volcanic peaks, a few rolling hills that dotted the interior, and I
found a handful of freshwater pools and springs. There didn't seem
to be any shortage of low-hanging food in a few groves that I marked,
and most of all: there was clean water. There was some wildlife like
I mentioned before, but nothing on land looked predatory on a human
level.
Honestly,
the most disturbing thing I found were the rusted remains of human
trespass. It littered the shoreline in fragments, odd-shaped memories
half-buried every few miles. The evidence came and went at the mercy
of the tides.
I
think I mentioned this already, but the
second big
revelation I had was
that the Island was a bitch. No,
not A bitch. THE bitch. Bitch. Capital B. She
didn't just live and breathe like
any other fire-breathing, morphing landmass, oh
no....
She defied time and space. She
laughed in the
face of
sound physics and
flipped it the bird before
logic
could collectively
open
its
mouth to complain.
I've
found
gravity wells and time distortions littered
all over the place like a minefield.
Sunlight refracted
through the air in places for
no apparent reason.
I
found half
of a banana rotted a day faster than the rest
of it
when
I let it sit on the edge of a clearing once.
The
line of decay
had a freaking
scalpel's
precision. So
yeah, the
island’s
seriously
got
a few
secrets it
seems
pretty insistent on
taking
to its
grave. Or mine-- not
sure if its
decided yet.
Then
there were
the monkeys, again.
To
put it mildly,
I wasn’t
a fan. They were
loud, they stole
food, they pissed
in your water and bathed
in urine-- (I
never actually saw
them do it, but they
certainly
smelled
like it.)
They were
damn clever, problem solved,
and apparently, thanks to me-- they learned how to masturbate. I
know! Shut up, humans
have needs.
So
if
you combined
my
pretty healthy libido with
being stranded on a deserted island, well,
shit happened...
Clothing
came
and went,
it washed
up on shore either on
its own
or attached
to
the backs of someone who was
never
going to need it
again.
Either
way, it
never
held
up very
well.
I
was
always in
a constant shuffle of patchwork outfits, leaves, vines, and nudity. I
think it’s fair to say that the
wide leaves with the thick
veins had
this kind of sap that reminded me of aloe. It didn't
soothe
burns though. It tingled
against
the
skin like some
kind of schizophrenic electricity.
It
came
and
went,
throbbed
as if the tactile receptors were
all confused.
Too
much did
make
me
go
numb for a bit, but
the
best part? When the numbness wore
off, and by
gods it
took
its sweet-ass time, it made
my
skin hyper-sensitive. Trust me, if Eve had this instead of a fig leaf
in Eden, she wouldn't have given Adam the time of day.
So
try
to imagine
walking around with numb breasts and a numb crotch for
two freaking
days.
Try peeing when you can't feel your vagina. Go ahead, try it, I'll
wait. Feel that? The way the
warmth
just
trickles
down your leg? Yeah. It's fun, right? It
gets better. Now
go
ahead and imagine
needing to pee with hypersensitivity.
I literally
pissed
myself
to orgasm
for a freaking
week.
I'd wake up in the morning, walk over to my latrine and squat over
the wooden slats-- then
fall
over when my body convulsed. It was the most humiliating, and I'll
admit, the
most intense sexual feeling I'd
ever known. And
to answer the question before you ask, yes,
I've done it on purpose from time to time since then.
By
now you might
be
thinking to yourself 'what's any
of that got
to do with
the monkeys'
am
I right?
No, I didn't start seeing them wearing leaves. The leaves just
reminded me that I had a source of entertainment every
now and then.
Remember
how
in addition to stealing my food and being a Goddamned
nuisance, they
liked
to watch me from the canopy of trees? They’d
usually only do it
when I was storing food so
they got
a head start on
how I secured the crates. They
watched how
I
tied the damn
knots and
then
they'd
figure
out
how to untie them. They
fucking
problem-solved!
I hooked up warning clacks once,
these kind of
wooden reeds that
jangled
whenever
the monkey's would try to work the ropes loose. The monkeys
muffled them with leaves. I knotted
the crates with just
impossible
ties after
that and
they
found my knives and cut them. They watched me, and they mimicked me.
Sometimes
they
copied my every move.
So
one day I was just off the shoreline, sitting
in
the shade, drowsy on crab and mango. I
was
two days off a leaf patch I
used
to
cover
my nipples from
the sun and
bored
watching the shoals
for wreckage,
anything else
that
needed to be buried, burned,
or collected. A
soft
breeze
grazed
my skin,
warm
and gentle,
like steamy
breath. My nipples stood straight up and I squeezed my thighs
together before
I even realized I'd done it.
I trailed my hands up my leg, brushed
off
the
sand near
my knee and
started
to
feel
the
skin of my outer thighs.
Once
I
closed my eyes, my imagination shot off like a rocket. It
was my first
intense, lucid daydream. I remember
still feeling
the warm air, I
still
heard
the ocean lapping at the shore, but it steadily
drifted
further and further away until it
barely existed.
I
remember silence swallowing
over everything for a breath or two before
the
sound of city traffic
slowly rose
out of the waves like a sluggish leviathan. Car horns, the hiss of
tires rolling across pavement. I heard the hum of delivery
drones
and a cool breeze washed
over me.
The
balcony of the Mirach building was forty floors up and overlooked the
Chimera Peninsula. The cocktail lounge was
slowly
draining as the jazz band wrapped up the last notes of the evening.
Two men were
talking
near at
the
bar and
kept
stealing glances at me, one at a time while the other wasn't looking.
I
wore
some kind of
black sequined cocktail dress, something so noir it made normal
darkness
wear sunglasses. I felt the breeze brush up against my skin again.
It
deftly
parted
the gap in my dress, it
crawled
up
from
my ankle to the middle of my pale thigh. I finished my drink and
headed for the men at bar.
When
I
set
the empty glass in front of the barman between them, I
smiled wickedly,
“so
who wants to fill me up?”
The
one on the right grinned like an evil genius and I felt the warmth of
his hand press against the back of my thigh. He set his own empty
glass next to mine and his friend's hand touched the small of my
back. “I think the lady needs a double.”
My
mind skipped ahead, and I found myself out on the balcony again with
both men pressed in close to either side of me. They created an
amazing tactile sensation: the night air fought against the heat that
radiated from their bodies. The drinks were soon forgotten while I
alternated between being warmed by one man, and kissed by the other.
They
took turns flawlessly, their hands were a perfect contrast. One pair
felt strong and powerful, while the other was delicate and precise.
Their mouths were just as complimentary. The taller man's lips were
fuller, his tongue more adventurous while his friend was full of
hidden promises of how he'd feel with his head between my legs.
I
felt him pull back just long enough to spin me around to face his
friend. The moment my lips parted, I felt him press his body against
my back. I felt both of their cocks pushing against me, both men
were almost molten with raw energy. A hand reached around me to cup
one of my breasts. Delicious heat found its way through my dress and
seeped into my nipple a breath before his fingertips pressed it to
rigid attention. His friend's hand gently touched my cheek before
drifting to the back of my neck so he could pull me in closer. His
tongue dueled with mine, darted between our mouths until I let him
win. I sighed and groaned, the sounds intertwined, and I felt
lighter than air.
The
balcony melted away and we were all in a dark hotel room. A
sliver
of moonlight cut through the curtains, barely revealing
our
bodies. Both men
were
topless, their skin a rough patchwork of muscle and scars, gleaming
skin and coarse hair. Lips found my own, darting and teasing, hands
found the straps of my dress and the zipper on the back lowered
soundlessly. Hot breath found the back of my neck and it traced the
line of exposed skin. My
dress pooled
around my heels. I felt
the powerful
hands push
against
my hips, inching
me forward just
enough that
my arms wrapped around the
other man’s slender
shoulders just
to
keep from falling over. That powerful mouth kissed the small of my
back, then trailed lower, right over the curve
of my ass before finding his way to the heated core of me. I felt
the first thrust of his tongue and I gasped into his friend's mouth.
His kisses turned primal, his hands cupped
and
kneaded my
breasts. He only broke the kiss long
enough to
taste my nipples, one after the other, lavishing them with the same
kind of predatory intent as he'd done with my mouth.
The
hands on my hips pulled me back against his face. I felt his tongue
reach
even
deeper
into me from behind. I
felt teeth
grazed
against
my
nipples. I almost collapsed between the two of them as my first
orgasm ripped through me. They
left me panting while an
electric
current ricocheted
between their mouths. It
felt
so intense
that
I
felt
my muscles twitching.
The
room swirled for a moment and I found myself laying on the bed. The
men had switched positions and shed the last of their clothes. The
new tongue kept darting in and out, kept teasing at my clit, it
rimmed
my ass. Slowly
I started feeling his fingertips join the chorus of sensations he
created. The man in front of me ran his fingers though my hair as I
moaned against the side of his cock. I ran my hand up and down the
shaft, felt the smooth texture, dragged the moisture from the head
down his full length and waited for that first hiss of pleasure to
escape his lips before I tasted him. Every sound in the room turned
into
a muted shuffling of bed springs and sheets being
tangled. I heard
choked-off moans and moisture that
dripped
over fingers. I
felt warm
soft
skin
on edge
of turning damp
with sweat. The whole room was a single breath from exploding into a
frenzy.
The
man behind me shifted. I felt his mouth start to trail a line of
kisses that climbed over the curve of my hip. His fingers never
stopped playing me like an instrument. I felt like I flooded his
hand, dripping with anticipation. When I felt his weight settle onto
the bed behind me, I stroked his friend harder, I swirled my tongue
around the crown of his cock and waited for the orgasm building
inside me to reach a fevered peak. I was so close, waiting for it
for it to wash over me any second. My moans reverberated against the
cock in my hand and he suddenly stopped. There was a moment where I
felt empty, like I was being punished for some unspeakable crime, and
then the head of his cock press firmly against my labia. I pulled
the cock from between my lips and stroked him, my forehead resting
against his hip.
The
man behind me started running his hands up and down my back. I
pressed back into him, desperate to feel him inside me, but he pulled
away, teasing me again. I was about to say something, anything, I
had the words on the back of my throat when he buried himself into
me. I felt him spread me open, felt his hard cock fill me. The heat
of his breath was against the back of my neck. He filled me to the
point I thought I might explode, and then he pulled away slowly just
to fill me again.
I
lost track of everything. The
orgasm I was waiting for hit me like a truck, and then another one
I didn’t see coming followed
right behind it. Fingertips found my nipples again, and it was just
the spark of focus I needed to shake my head out of the fog I'd been
in. My fist closed around the
cock in
my hand,
my lips parted, and I let them set the pace. I pulled and squeezed, I
groaned and came, over and over. When
I felt like I couldn't take any more, they
both slowed down, withdrawing in
perfect unison. Their
hands turned
gentle and they caressed my skin, wiped the hair away from my eyes
and laid me on my back between them.
The
sliver of light just barely outlined their profiles, their cocks
glistening. I reached
out and touched them, wrapped my hands around them, stroked
them together, one in each hand. I watched their shoulders arch,
watched their chests heave and waited for them to shudder. I could
feel them
pulsing, I felt their
heat, the way
they swelled
in my grip.
I alternated, fast and
slow, hard and then soft. When it felt like they were both ready, I
matched the rhythm, I stroked and pumped them at the same time, and
when
they
groaned it
turned into one
ragged,
guttural
release. They exploded over me, and I felt their
droplets hit my skin like wax poured
off
a
candle. They were hot, but instantly cooled--
and they just kept spilling
out onto me, coating my fists. The sound of their wet skin was like
heaven.
When
I let go of them to start
stroking my clitoris again,
they
both
just
seemed to melt away into the darkness. The light from the window
brightened, and the waves came back. I
clenched
up
on one last orgasm up
and rolled
onto
my side, letting
the world take its time coming back.
My
throat was so dry
when
I finally came up for air. I
felt
dehydrated from the flood
that
I released
into
the underbrush.
I
felt good, really damn good. As
I rolled back
over and blinked the stupid out of my eyes,
I saw one of the monkey's up in a tree. She
wasn't
even
twenty yards from
me
and she had her furry
little
hand clenched
between
her legs. Her
thighs
were
crushed
together
around her wrist while
she
shuddered
and rolled
over onto
her
side. She
panted
and twitched.
One
of the males approached her and
the
moment she saw him, she jumped
up and tackled
him. It was the most surreal--
utterly
mind-boggling thing I'd ever seen. I
felt so
completely exposed; like
I'd just been
caught
masturbating
in
front of
a neighbor's special needs kid.
So I freaked out a
bit after that.
It
was enough to
keep
my legs closed for a long damn
time. The
truth was out though,
because every
other day I
kept seeing those little bastards
touching
themselves every time I went out to get
food or re-explore
the island. It
was one of the most disturbing events of me life, so
yeah, if you ever
see
one of them jilling off, you're welcome. Trust
me, I
know it's something you just can't unsee...
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