STRANDED!

by Pepper Pace

  "Oceans! Don't come any closer...stay back." She stopped, curious as to why he wouldn't let her come closer. But she waited patiently. Finally, he dug out the shank that he'd gotten used to carrying and he began to cut something. It seemed to her that it took a long time for him to cut through the item. Then he began to use a side stroke as he dragged the items to shore. He looked exhausted and she helped him tow the items to shore the last few feet. Once he was free of the water, she noticed that he was carrying a backpack as well as the parachute.

  Once on shore, he collapsed and she dragged the beautiful piece of cloth further up on shore, noting that the lines had been cut where it connected to the person that would have been manning the thing. Once she was sure that it wouldn't float away, she hurried back to Marshall who had sat up and was now unzipping a backpack. She knelt beside him eagerly to watch as each item emerged from the depths of the sodden pack.

  "Was...that the pilot?"

  He glanced at her with haunted eyes. And then he nodded in affirmation. "Sharks and fish had gotten at him..."

  "Okay." And she left it at that. He pulled clothing from the pack, running shoes, a carton of sodden cigarettes, a lighter, knife, a little black notebook...and a cell phone. Oceans felt as if she would faint. Marshall looked at her very seriously. Cell phone, cell phone, cell phone...kept running through her mind.

  "We'll let this dry completely Oceans. We'll take it apart and let it dry, okay?" There was a desperation to his voice that she knew showed on her own face. All she could do was to nod, feeling her eyes tear at the prospect that...

  He placed all of the items back into the pack, pocketing the lighter. Then Oceans gingerly carried the cell phone while Marshall balled the parachute and carried it back to camp. As soon as they got back, he knelt in the hut and began to remove the battery as if he were doing a delicate surgery. Oceans watched with bated breath. After it was done, he looked at her with his hazel eyes seeming so hopeful, but also terrified. Sometimes having hope was worse than not having any.

  The two tried to occupy their time, so while Marshall lay Geddes' wet clothing out to dry, they discussed what would be the best use for the parachute. The topic was discussed for most of the afternoon with every possibility considered. In the end, it was decided that they would make hammocks.

  In this department, Oceans was more the expert. She drew out the plans for the hammocks in the sand. The parachute lines would be used to support it between two trees. They would just need the trees. They had a quick cold dinner and then the two went about the task of carefully cutting out the pattern of the hammocks. The new knife came in handy for this job. The ends were knotted around the ties so that they wouldn't cut through the thin material. It went relatively fast but the two were anxious to try them out and to sleep off the hard ground (away from the crawling night insects). The only thing is that there weren't trees on the beach. This caused them to re-evaluate whether they should relocate their campsite to the forest as opposed to the beach. There were pros and cons for each.

  Oceans thought she remembered palm trees being very close to the beach. If they moved their campsite yet again, they'd be even further away from the old campsite...but also a bit further from the water source. All in all, it was an easy decision to relinquish their neat hut for the opportunity to sleep off the ground. Since it was growing dark, they put off the move until the morning.

  When they retreated to the hut, Marshall again offered to keep watch while she slept, though this time she made him promise to wake her up in a few hours. She knew he'd play Mr. Macho and not want to do it, but she got him to agree by indicating that they'd be able to wake up earlier and accomplish more if they both slept during the night.

  She stared at the dark image of the cell phone. "When should we try it?"

  Marshall stared out into the night. The torches and the fire raged, but he wasn't convinced that it was sufficient to ward off a wild boar. He turned to Oceans. "In the morning, we'll check as soon as the sun rises." He turned back to stare into the night. They had to get off this Island. Eventually something was going to get at them and he couldn't protect her for long.

  ***

  As he promised, Marshall woke Oceans and then lay down for a restless sleep. She fed the fire but mostly just thought about getting off the island. It seemed to take forever for the crack of dawn. But as soon as the first light showed, she woke up Marshall. He jumped up as if he was a kid at Christmas.

  Marshall picked up the battery first and examined it, trying to see any evidence of wetness. Then he picked up the phone and didn't see any condensation. It was completely dry. He knew that the hot Caribbean sun would work fast.

  "Say a prayer." He said. Then he slipped the battery back into the phone. He squeezed it in his hand before pressing the button to turn it on. He'd dropped more than one cell phone into water. Usually a few keys wouldn't engage or it wouldn't move forward or backwards. But it always worked.

  But this time it didn't. It was completely dead. Marshall stared at it in horror.

  "Hold the button down a little longer." She suggested. He did as she asked. When nothing happened he stared at it for a few minutes, neither of them speaking. He dropped the phone onto the ground and left the hut. Oceans looked after him but didn't follow. He walked to the waters edge and stopped just short of the ocean. His bare feet sank into the cold sand as he watched the horizon. Marshall began sobbing.

  Much later, he walked back to the hut. Oceans watched him approach and then set aside the mat that she was working on. She stood and put her arms around him and hugged him tight. Marshall stiffened but didn't pull away. Soon, Oceans broke the hold and looked at him curiously. He just stared at the ground before murmuring.

  "Maybe we should head over to the new campsite now." She nodded in agreement. The hammocks carried most of their belongings. They'd have to make a second trip for the pot and the torches, but they got most of their things in one trip. They traveled quietly and it felt odd not to chat with him. Oceans was finding herself becoming lonely since Marshall had sunk into this funk. It started when the wild boar had chased her. Now Marshall never went anywhere without one of the lethal spears that he'd made. During his watch, he seemed to expect the worse. She had begun thinking of Marshall as her friend and it hurt her to see him like this. Maybe something as small as the hammocks might lift his spirits.

  They found one large tree that grew on the rocky embankment where the beach met the edge of the forest. It was a massive tree with no coconuts growing from it; a potentially deadly place to hang a hammock from if it did grow coconuts. Nature had created the perfect hammock base; a tree that curved away from the forest as if it were reaching from the shadows to the brightness of the sunny beach.

  Marshall was wearing a pair of jeans that had been in Geddes' pack and he looked up at the tree with some trepidation. He began climbing it, thinking that if he fell...well he'd surely break something because the ground here was nothing but rock...But he didn't fall and after a lengthy trial and error, he was able to secure one end of each hammock to a sturdy branch.

  It wasn't a hard decision of where to hang the other end of the hammocks because there weren't very many more options. After several hours bother hammocks were secure; though not exactly as close to each other as they would have liked. Also they were pretty high from the ground...and there were deadly rocks beneath them. Not the perfect situation; it would be damned hard to get into it and would require some acrobats to get out of it. But on the plus side, no wild boar would be able to reach them as they slept. Marshall thought it was a good trade off.

  At approximately 2 pm, seventeen days into their adventure on the island, Marshall and Oceans climbed into their respective 'beds' a mere foot from each other. One hammock was five feet from the ground the other was another foot higher. Deadly rocks were beneath them. BUT...No bugs crawled from a mass of green woven banana leaves to invade their hair and clothes. No sand would find its way into their ear hollows, eyes and nose.
And being under the oversized palm leaves made them feel as if they were at a resort. Marshall smiled for the first time in over a week. He looked down at her as she used her right leg to swing her hammock lightly.

  "This is great isn't it?"

  She just smiled like a Cheshire cat. "I'm never getting out of this." Then she looked over the side of the hammock. It was a steep, dangerous drop. Yeah, she was content to stay here until the call of nature made its appearance.

  ***

  The new beach was nice, though it was far from where they had originally washed ashore and on a rockier portion of the beach. The benefits outweighed the faults in that the new beach offered more shade and the rocks could be utilized for cooking and sitting. Marshall and Oceans found that by keeping busy, the reality of being stranded was held at bay. They worked hard during their waking hours and then slept deeply in their hammocks.

  Immediately, Marshall began securing a safe floor for beneath their hammocks. It meant rearranging the rocks until they were level and then shoveling pounds and pounds of sand to pack it down. He proudly announced that when it was done, it would be the foundation for their new and improved hut. He had intricate plans that, to Oceans, seemed hard to follow. But he seemed to enjoy creating large walls from saplings, vines and banana leaves, and then laying them out neatly against the rocks until he was ready to assemble them.

  Oceans had a new project of her own. She finally had the resources to safely prepare the bitter cassava. As a bonus, she also found several Ackee trees. For the last few days, she had used some of the extra parachute line to make a trap for some small animal. After more than a month, fish had definitely lost its appeal. However, Marshall had not perfected the art of catching other edible sea creatures. So Oceans was beginning to utilize her cooking skills. Using her new scraper, she shredded the fibrous yucca root and soaked it for a day in the sea water, then as an extra precaution, soaked it again in fresh water from the spring. Next the fibers were allowed to dry in the hot sun and then she used two rocks to grind the meal into flour. Once the precious flour was made, she carefully wrapped it in a silk scarf that she'd had packed away in her suitcase, which also kept it from the sand and from being food to the insects.

  Marshall watched her with interest, when after a week of preparation, the day finally arrived that it was time to use the cassava flour. She grabbed a palm full of the precious salt that they had long ago begun to dry on various fiberglass sheeting. She added fresh water to some of the yucca flour and kneaded it into a dough. It was the exact age old recipe used by millions of people across the world; it was the recipe for bammie. She fried small bammie cakes on hot rocks. They looked like corn cakes and Marshall's mouth watered as he watched them come perfectly off the rocks. They ate half of them right there for breakfast and then the two went off into the forest for their daily search for wood and to collect more cassava.

  "I was thinking about fossil fuel." Marshall spoke while stooping down to pick up and examine a rotting coconut. He hefted it deeper into the forest.

  "Fossil fuel?" Oceans asked. She used her large walking stick to rustle a dense bit of foliage. Sometimes birds, snakes or fast moving creatures inhabited them and she didn't like running a yard into the forest screaming because something had scared her.

  "Yeah. There's a reef along the rock line." It's where he always had success catching a fish or two, though trying to catch them against the reef was dangerous. They were sharp like razors and he'd cut himself more times then he wanted to recount. "I was thinking that if I can get a nice size piece of reef then we can dry it, and then use it for torchlight."

  She gave him an appreciative look. "It's worth a try." Marshall had at least begun sleeping through the night—now that their hammocks were near impossible to reach by wild boars, but he was frantic about keeping the torches lit through the night and often got up to relight them.

  Certain things had made life easier for them on the Island, such as the hammocks, the knife, the lighter, and Geddes' backpack. Now Marshall had change of clothes and shoes to put on his feet. The string gave them a very lucky day because a Meer rat was in the trap that Oceans had made. Both of them just stood frozen, breaths held. Truthfully, it was just luck that something bigger hadn't come along and snatched the thing.

  Finally Marshall jumped into action. He dispatched the small animal with a quick twist of its neck. Afterwards Marshall and Oceans looked at each other solemnly, and then they both whooped with joy. Oceans then quickly reset and repaired the trap, improving it in places at Marshall's suggestion. They collected the rest of the wood, tying it into bundles which made it easier to drag by using vines that they had made into rope. The day was starting out to be a good one. They trekked back to camp happily. Feeling inspired, they picked wild greens, onions, mushrooms (avoiding the red ones because Oceans said too). Marshall's mouth was practically watering at the thought of the feast they would have.

  Even though he had plenty of work to do, Marshall was unable to help himself from watching Ocean's prepare the meal. He felt like he was back home in his loft apartment watching the Food Network. A city boy, he had no idea how to skin and prepare the little Meer rat. Oceans' island girl came out and she prepared the animal for cooking in just a few short moments. Marshall saved the fur, though he had no idea how to dry it but he would figure it out later.

  When all prepared, Oceans set their feast on the oversized mat that they used for eating and sitting. There was roasted Meer rat. Wild onions and mushrooms were sautéed on a piece of metal in the fat rendered from the animal, as well as ackee and fish (though not the salt fish she would have preferred). Various greens, including cassava leaves, were simmered in the makeshift pot of water and then seasoned with a bit of the sea salt and more of the wild onions. Perfectly roasted plantains lay on banana leaves, split and steaming, while bammie bread was used to sop up everything. As an additional treat, they drank a mixture of mango infused coconut milk that Marshall had concocted.

  Wordlessly, they had dressed in their best clothes and Oceans had pulled her hair back in a braid and tucked several orchids into it. Marshall had pulled on a button-up shirt from the pack and had actually buttoned it. They ate their meal properly instead of laying sprawled out on the mat, joking and spilling topsy turvy cups of water and coconut milk.

  It was so polite, it felt like a date. And so like a date, there was tension.

  "So, that guy you used to date...Franklin was it?"

  Oceans quickly chewed and swallowed, while nodding her head. "Yes."

  "You and he never thought about marrying?"

  "Well...I thought about it. He wasn't interested in making us legal. I mean...why should he? I was already doing everything a wife would do."

  "When you left to take care of your Dad, didn't he..." There were too many things that he wanted to say like: try to get back with you, miss you, fly down to stay with you...

  Oceans answered his unfinished question. "No. I called him for a few months but...he never made any attempts to contact me first. It was obvious that I was just an intrusion on his life."

  Marshall was shaking his head in disbelief. "He was a fool." Oceans met his eyes and then looked away quickly. Marshall's eyes lingered on the outline of her breasts beneath the thin material of her sundress. It had become a stupid, inconvenient waste of time to don a bra every day so recently she had stopped the habit.

  Oceans wasn't top heavy by any means, so she thought that Marshall probably wouldn't even notice. She was wrong. He quickly used his bread to scoop up more greens which he chewed with deliberate concentration. He needed to think of other things then the way her darker nipples could be clearly seen against the thin material of all of her clothing. Marshall had never been with a black woman. Were their nipples always darker than their skin? God...he shuddered.

  Oceans peeked at Marshall, watching his face color. She knew what brought that color to his face. A woman knows when a man's eyes are on her body. She felt like it was suddenly
very hard to breathe. She hadn't been touched by a man in years. Living with her dad, she was much too busy to think of such things, and even when someone looked twice at her—her father's friends would run them off, as if they had to protect her virtue for the ill man.

  Lately, she'd been thinking of it. She didn't think much of race; though her two previous lovers had been black. She was familiar with a black man's penis and tight ebony scrotum. Her cheeks felt warm as she remembered the time she'd seen Marshall naked. He didn't know it but he had been taking his daily swim in search for fish. That day she had decided to take a break from weaving and had walked down to the wall where he'd been fishing of late. Marshall had just left the water and was holding a piece of parachute line that had three fish strung on it. He was also completely nude. Oceans had ducked out of sight but she couldn't help herself as she peeked from behind her hiding place, watching him drop the fish onto shore. He swept his hands through his longish, wet hair. She remembered gasping at the sight of his perfect body. His sun bronzed skin was devoid of any fat. He had been fit before but now he was in athletic condition!