The Locket Key

The locket dangled from his fingers. The thin chain that held it circled his wrist, glinting in the sun and off-setting the rusted matte heart with an emblem on the bottom of a bird. It was an antiqued and rugged treasure in the arm of an a man who now felt as washed up as the locket literally was. The rough in the diamond, not the diamond in the rough. It was too bad Adam couldn't exchange it for money, or even show it to anyone. He couldn't quite remember how he ended up on this small bit of dry land in the middle of the salty bathtub we call the ocean.

Standing up, he brushed sand from his blue slacks, reminiscing on how they were once creased to the utmost perfection. His white button down was unbuttoned, and torn in parts. A brand new blazer with a tie to match it's metallic buttons was strewn across the sand on the other part of the small island. The young man turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees to adsorb the picture that encompassed him. His throat was parched as he took in the repetition of it. All ocean.

Adam had found the locket several hours ago, washed up on the shore. It was partially covered by sand and partially by water, draped across driftwood. Soon after he found an equally weathered wooden crate, with a rusted lock that had an emblem of a bird on the back. He looked perplexed as he recalled the bird emblem. Thats right, Adam slowly remembered...the locket!

Turning the locket in his hand, he soon realized the dainty necklace doubled as a key that had something to do with this crate. Excitement ceased him as quickly as it left him, an air fist-pump collapsing into a limp arm as realization overtook his emotions.

Resignation suddenly engulfed him. There was nothing in this box that could help him, even if it was anything that may aide his survival. It didn't matter. He had accepted that he was stuck on the island, and that it was a land much too small and far out out to be found. He understood that anything that aided his survival elongated the time he would spend in this silent hell. He also understood that he had lost even a desire for food or company, lost the ability to sleep and eventually depleted completely his Adam to survive.

Facing his reality, Adam crumpled by the wooden crate, still grasping the locket that was its' key, and there he lay awake for several hours before he opened it.

The sun was setting and the sight was enough to cheer a defeated Adam. He carelessly lifted the locket key and used it to open the wooden crate. The latch made a creaking noise, clearly heard against the tranquility of the crashing waves. The top of the crate shuddered and seemed as if it were trying to put up a fight, all wobbly and spasmodic, before collapsing in the sand completely. The crate was open.

The crate was filled with pictures, spilling out. Adam stepped back in surprise. Not one of these pictures was weathered, or even slightly torn. They were shiny images that covered smiles and laughter, disguised in a dirty sea crate. The photographs were all highly intact and the quality of the images was outstanding.

The photos overlapped each other as they fell to the sand. A child grinning over a birthday cake, a boy learning to ride a bike for the first time, a parent blowing raspberries on a baby's belly and the baby returning an open mouthed smile beaming a single tooth. An elderly couple sitting on a porch seemingly too tired to smile, the lines in their faces revealing a wisdom that Adam knew from a time not long ago. Recognition slowly filled Adam's eyes, and soon his tears as he shifted through pictures of himself as a child, his own children, and eventually grandchildren.

As Adam looked down at his arms, they started to wrinkle dramatically before his eyes, the veins popping out as sun spots littered the aged skin. His hair started to fall out in patches and turn white. It now made sense. The island was a place he had sent himself since he wasn't able to face the shock- physically or mentally- of death. The old man's only regret as he came out of the coma to face his family, the rigged hospital bed, and soon the end of his life... was only that he hadn't spent his dying moments on the island enjoying himself.

Word Count: 771