The rest of the day was spent hunting for berries, and found one additional bush of them near the clearing I had found previously. I tried to pull another fish from the pond, with no luck. The berries were good, and I ended up eating them all, still feeling hungry afterwards.
That night, I drank a half bottle of water, and sat on the beach again. I must have fallen asleep on the beach, because I woke up feeling the cold air on my face. The warm glow of the sunrise, started to peak out from behind the mountain on my island. I only had a half bottle of water left, and now was out of peanuts and berries.
The waves gave me an idea. I looked on the beach but didn’t see what I was looking for. I walked down the coast at least a mile, rounding a bend and BAM, found exactly what I wanted to find. A tide pool. There, at the apex of the mini-inlet was a tide pool that looked to be at least a foot or two deep at the center. I just hoped that something got caught in it, as I was now facing literally starving.
I stood in the water, about waist deep at the center, and hoped that I could catch a fish. I stood for what seemed like forever, but saw nothing moving worth grabbing. I got out, and walked towards the ocean water, wondering if there might be anything out there that I could catch. I floated out to chest depth, and could still see the bottom clearly. I saw fish swimming about, but they were moving pretty quickly. I wasn’t too sure of my plan at this point, but stayed with it a bit longer. Eventually, I saw a fish that was maybe about two feet long, and swimming slowly near my legs. Without moving my legs much, I rotated and reached down to try to quickly grab it.
I got a good hold of it, and thought I might actually make it. Problem was that this particular fish had two predators hunting it today. Before I knew what happened, a blur of dark grey swam in my face and bit into the fish, right between my hands. An inch either direction and I could have lost one of my arms. The fish was snatched, by this shark that was, maybe, four to five feet long, fin sticking up proudly out of the water.
Immediately I froze, let it have my catch, and slowly backed away until I felt I was shallow enough that it wouldn’t come after me. HOLY SHIT!! I had never seen a shark in person, only on those Discovery Channel shows. Up close and personal, I now knew that I NEVER wanted to fuck with sharks again. I got back to completely dry land, and flopped down on my ass. I was still reeling, but now realized I had another problem. That fucker took my dinner, so now I was going to go hungry again. FUCK!!
With little options, I walked back to my crash site. I was tired as hell. My mouth was dry as a desert now, and my stomach wouldn’t stop grumbling. I was in some real shit now, and had no idea what to do. My movie training was running out. I sat, and waited. I really didn’t know what I was waiting for anymore, but apparently that’s all I could do. Maybe I was just waiting to die. And that fucking parrot still sat, mocking me. It even made some noise this time, a loud squawk, and tilted its head to the side. I didn’t care anymore.
My eyelids got very heavy, so I climbed back up into the plane, and fell fast asleep. I awoke with the sunrise, and realized it was going to be another perfect day. It was just too bad that now, without water and food, my day would be miserable. I got down, and just sat on the beach.
At the lowest point in my life, I wondered if I could kill myself with a flare gun? Not likely. Perhaps I could swim out and let the sharks have me? No, that would probably hurt like hell, before actually dying. It’s a funny thing, to consider how you are going to die. Most people just think they will die of old age, falling asleep, and never waking up. That was how I had always figured I would go.
I sat contemplating my death, when I heard it. The faint buzzing noise of an approaching airplane. It wasn’t very close yet, but I could tell it was heading in my direction. I jumped up, and without much thought, shot the flare gun into my signal fire pile. The flare was mostly just light and smoke, but was actually a source of flame too, so it lit the pile. I stood like a moron, and tried to fan the fire with my arms, to make it grow quickly.
Pretty soon, it was ablaze. I stood back from the heat, and just prayed that the approaching plane saw the smoke. In a last minute thought, I took a stick and wrote out the word HELP in the sand. After an eternity passed, I finally saw it. What a beautiful sight! The plane was coming over the mountains, heading down towards where I was. It flew over, and circled around for another pass. It slowed and I jumped up and down!
Obviously, the plane couldn’t land to pick me up, but they did toss a box out at me as it passed over. It had some water in it, along with a blanket. I sat down, drank some of the water, and waited to be properly picked up. Several hours later, a boat finally picked me up, and I was never happier to see anyone in my life. Thank god for the Coast Guard.
“Thank god you guys showed up. Thank you so much,” I told them.
They waved it off, as just doing their jobs. Still, I thanked them anyhow. I was checked out by the medic on the boat, and when they returned to their station, ushered me into the base clinic. I was told to rest, and drink lots of water, but otherwise wasn’t too worse for the wear. I waited there, and they told me that one of my friends was on the way to pick me up.
I must have fallen asleep while I waited, because the sun was setting when I woke up, to see Shawn standing next to my bed. He smiled, seeing me waking up.
“Shawn, man, am I glad to see you.”
“James, I’m just glad you’re ok. We were worried sick, after you didn’t return. Then word got to us that you had radioed for help, after crashing. Some fishing boat got your message, and relayed it to the Coast Guard.”
“Thank god for that. Let’s go home,” I said.
We left, and he got me back to Moloka’i. As we were walking down the dock, towards my boat, I saw a woman standing next to it. Caitlin. What the fuck is she doing here? I said as much.
“Shawn, what the fuck is she doing here?”
“She showed up, after getting a call from Maddy. I don’t know why she’s here, but it might do you some good to get closure.”
I really didn’t want to see her ever again, but he was right. I did need to at least get some answers from the cheating bitch. I wasn’t going to make it easy, plus I just got back from being stranded on an island for nearly a week. I didn’t have a lot of patience to go around.
“Caitlin, why are you here?”
“James, please. I know I am probably the last person you wanted to see, but I had to come. Maddy called me, and I got on the first plane out.”
“Why did you HAVE to come? Wanted to rub my nose in you fucking Cyrus some more?” I replied with venom. The anger that I had pushed aside, was boiling back up quickly.
She had tears in her eyes now, but I wasn’t going to let up.
“Caitlin, I came here to try to forget you. It won’t work, but I’ve been trying. I did NOTHING… NOTHING, to deserve what you did to me. I spent my life loving only you…”
“I KNOW!” she wailed. “Please, if you ever cared for me, just hear me out.” She sniffled, but got her tears under control.
“Fine.” Perhaps I could get some closure, and then be rid of her, for good this time. “I will listen to what you have to say, but then I want you to leave.”