There is a stump at the end of the beach that I trip over with such frequency you would think I was doing a pratfall to impress some Polynesian beauty. But there is no Polynesian beauty on this island upon which I have been marooned for the better part of a year. At least no Polynesian beauties I can see. Of course, my functional vision is confined to mere inches so they might be just over a sand berm, frolicking silently. Just my luck.
My family is the living embodiment that evolution is a myth. If it was true, the ancestral Jacobson would have squinted his way off a cliff millennium ago. We were a family of hypermyopics; we were all gripped with a terror that we lost our glasses. It was a miracle that our parents found each other. A geneticist may have warned strongly against my parents reproducing, but the world’s opticians sent flowers each time my mother gave birth. I remember waking up as a child in the cloudy terror of night and hearing my mother’s thumping as she searched her bedside table for her glasses.
Last April, Brynn, a childhood friend who had made millions developing and selling Krztl Klr, a photo retouching app, told me of a round-the-world raced solely for Internet millionaires. The race organizers provided the boat, crew and food. Brynn and his ilk were supplied brightly-colored bad-weather gear and the honorific Captain. They were even allowed to steer or pull on lines when there was little chance of doing damage. A videographer was stationed onboard to document the adventure on Vimeo in high definition.
“Wanna race around the world,” Brynn asked me one day. Brynn had adjusted well after he sold his company. Once a man for whom the term 24/7 applied, he dismounted elegantly off the corporate merry-go-round and some days would only observe only one ten o’clock. He was always asking me if I was up for an adventure, whether it was a safari in Africa, a balloon trip in the Southwest or a drinking tour of Scotland.
Although I was in the same field as Brynn, I was simply the coder of other people’s ideas. Most of the time, I had to explain my boss took a dim view of employees taking off three months. To his credit, Brynn was always sympathetic. It didn’t deter him from going off on his adventure, but he would always send me a picture of him raising a glass of the local alcoholic beverage in my honor.
Luckily (for them) and unluckily (for me), the founders of my company were able to follow Brynn into early retirement. The acquiring company was interested in my company’s intellectual property, but not in the workers’ intellect. I was tossed out along with office furniture, with just with as much concern.
Brynn probably saw the acquisition coming and I hadn’t adjusted to the cold when my pocket started to buzz. “Wanna race around the world?” he asked. For once, I could say yes. It wasn’t like I was in a relationship or even in a long-term lease. I could disappear off the face of the Earth and no one would notice.
Unfortunately for me, fate took “disappear off the face of the Earth” literally. Three days out of Qingdao, China, the boat shrugged into an enormous storm that shook us like a snow globe. In addition to the headache – the result of careening into the mast – I was subsumed by nausea, courtesy of the dinner of lamb chops, fingerling potatoes and asparagus tips, washed down with an aged French wine I could not pronounce. All frothed about my stomach, seeking the quickest way out.
Even though I knew I could make it to the railing without actually seeing it, I put my glasses on, fearing that the pitching boat would toss them God-knows-where. What would I do if I never found them? I did not relish spending the rest of the race in a blur. My churning stomach didn’t leave time for debate. Just as I was about to lose the lamb chops over the port side, a wave hit us from the starboard, I was thrown against the railing and the glasses slipped from my nose into the drink. Not thinking, I leaned over the side as anther wave sealed my fate. I managed to land in a puddle of my vomit, swearing I could see my glasses spiraling down into the briny dark.
The boat, now reduced to a ghostly blur sailed on, unaware it was one myopic short. Convinced I was going to die, I wondered if I could see my life flash before my eyes clearly. A white blob came towards me; it could have been a chair, a box, a goat or basically anything of a similar size. Drowning in an angry sea, I didn’t have the luxury of being choosy and I pulled it towards my face.
Three inches away, I read the stenciled letters on the side and discovered it was an emergency raft. All I had to do was pull the red tag to inflate. What red tag? Everything was basically grey and I grabbed anything I could reach and yanked. I must have found the red tag as the white blob flew open like a hatching egg and smacked me in the face. The blob became a bigger blob into which I crawled. Lying on my back, all I could see was the rumor of waves about to crash over me. If I knew what direction to shout into, I would have. Instead, I stopped trying to make sense of the fuzzy figures around me and since celestial navigation was out of the question, I closed my eyes figuring I could not see my doom approaching anyway.
I awoke with something bright in my eyes and something crawling in and out of my pants. I jumped up and saw a dark green mass of what I assumed were palm trees, to my left and to the right was all beige, which I figured to be beach. There was something black to my left that I hoped was a building but it was probably just rocks. Further inland, a triangular shape rose above the tree line. I had to choose between volcano or a pyramid in which the natives offered human sacrifices; Neither appealed to me. I looked at the ocean; it was just a big blue.
“Hello,” I called. Then in a quiet voice, “help.” Then in an almost whisper “me.”
I groped towards the tree line like a anosmiac bloodhound. I tripped over a rock and decided to consider my fate and options; the former inexorable, the latter minimal.
Months later, the headaches have subsided and took hope with them for company. Anything that can fit in my mouth is held close to my face and consumed if it looks benign. I was lucky to find a small stream winding its way to the ocean. The water has an oddly bitter taste that I attribute to the monkeys or whatever is gamboling and giggling upstream. I have no choice but to stay near the beach in case of a ship sails by. I sleep under a palm tree that fell years ago, making an imperfect lean-to. As shelter goes, its only redeeming quality is its convenience. For all I know there is a dry, warm cave 30 feet from me. It might as well be in Cleveland.
Making fire is often a nearly impossible task as I can find the kindling, but not the dry wood. When I find the dry wood, I misplace the sticks I rub together. On the best days, I make a conflagration that can warm a mug of coffee, but a would-be rescuer would have to be two feet a way to see. I tried spelling SOS on the beach with a collection of rocks, but I couldn’t remember if I already wrote the O. I ran out of readily accessible rocks half-way through the final S and I fear my message will be interpreted as So? from space; attracting the attention of the most ambivalent astronauts.
About once a day, I stumble onto the beach to check my fish weir. I invariably see something white where the horizon should be. A ship! “Hey,” I shout. “Goddamn it,” as I step on something sharp. “Of fuck,” as I trip over a branch that would be obvious to anybody not me. “Over here!” I wade out into the surf, my feet finding all the sharp marine life. “Help,” I say, as the boat splits into a flight of seagulls, laughing their way overhead after stealing the contents of my trap. The only thing for which I am grateful is I can’t see how ridiculous I look.