Our Island

I found myself washed up on the island after a storm at sea. My container ship was hit by a huge wave, carrying me and cargo overboard. I saw, scattered along the beach, a trail of diverse items originally destined for shops ten thousand miles away. Some of them were useful to me; boxes of knives, and clothes - high fashion, sealed in plastic bags. There was enough to help me survive until I was rescued. I lit fires on the beach to hail ships passing in the distance. I fished and ate fruit from the trees. I waited and waited. Hope faded that I would ever leave the island. I began to accept it. I began to like it - so long as I didn't think about my family. I gave up lighting the fires. But a man can go mad in stark isolation. Then she arrived - the same way as me - washed up on the beach. I found her, just a figure lying on the sand, and I carried her to my shelter where she remained on a grass bed. She wouldn't move but she talked and told me about her family at home and I realised that it wasn't just about me anymore. I started lighting the fires on the beach again. Finally, one morning a boat came ashore. I directed the crew to my shelter. Laid on the grassy bed was just a mannequin, the kind which models high fashion clothes in shop windows.