Cast Away- Part 11

Please read Part 1 first "Cast Away" 

After the incident with Wilson, our survivor spends more time sleeping on his raft, which is in real bad shape now. It could barely support the man’s weight. We now see a passing commercial ship in the foreground. And like the scene with the whale, the large ship passes alongside the raft. Just then, our survivor turns over and his eyes view the large vessel. Our hero is finally rescued from the sea.

This is where I find out that he is an employee of Fed Ex. He was on a business trip when his plane crashed into the sea. He was the only survivor of that tragedy, and I understand that he had made it to that tiny Island on a rubber raft. I’ll have to see the picture from the start to write about those thrilling moments. I'm told Tom Hanks purposely gained weight prior to making this movie in order to portray an overweight employee, and then slims out during his stay on the Island. It was strange to finally see our hero in a suit and without his long beard. He had spent four long years as the sole inhabitant of that tiny Island and now he was back to civilization. He was welcomed back with open arms. The media had made him the center of attention. His employer and friends celebrated his return with parties and lectures in his honor. His fiancée fainted when she was told that he was still alive. She did the expected thing and went on with her life after search parties gave up in their recovery mission to look for survivors of the plane crash. Our hero was assumed dead, and they had funeral services for him. After some time, she met someone and they married and had a child.

It must have been awkward for our survivor to return home and find that many things had changed during the years that he was away on that Island. After the fanfare of welcoming him back had ended, our man made arrangements to see his former fiancée, so he took a taxi to her home. Upon their arrival, he told the driver to wait and gave him some money. The taxi driver told him he had 10 minutes. He walked to the front door and announced his arrival. I imagine he had called ahead that he was coming. She responded by opening the door and ushered him inside the house. There were moments of uneasiness between them. To break the sudden silence of not knowing what to say, she asked him if he would join her in having coffee. She sets about the task, first opening the refrigerator to take out cream for the coffee. He notices the pictures on the front of the refrigerator, and he inquires about her son. That seemed to break the ice, and they started some small talk. She told him that she would not have married if she had known that he was still alive.

They chatted some more, and then after awhile he remarks that his waiting taxi had left by now, so she motions to him to follow her to the garage. There, she shows him his car, which she had kept all these years. She presents him with the keys to the car, which was a gesture of returning his property to him. He was surprised, but took the keys. She took out some baby things that were in the back and placed them in another vehicle on the other side of the garage. She watched her former boyfriend get into the driver’s seat of his vehicle and back it out of the garage. He then turned it around and very slowly drove away. Suddenly, his former fiancée ran after him calling out his name, and he stopped the car. He got out and walked back toward her, and they came together in embrace. She tearfully told him that she missed him so and that she still loved him, but explained she had a life now and would not abandon her family. They both knew that they could not be together again. They embraced again, and he returned to the car and slowly drove away.

In the next scene, we find our survivor driving along a highway. You knew he was searching for something, maybe a life somewhere. Inside the car I assumed was his luggage. The car was loaded with plenty of drinking water, something that will always be a luxury to him. He takes a sip from an open bottle. He stops the car in a cross road going in different directions. Our survivor steps outside, and opens a map placing it on the hood of the car. A vehicle passes by and stops a short distance ahead and then returns to park alongside his car. An attractive girl gets out of her pick up truck, and she asks him if he needs assistance. She points out the areas that each road leads too. One of them would take him all the way to Canada, if he wanted to go there. He thanks her for her help, and she gets back into her vehicle and drives away. He folds up the map, gets behind the driver’s seat and drives down the same road toward the beginning of a new life.

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I want to apologize for all the references to the main characters in this story. I use survivor, our hero, our man, and he or she, etc. I didn’t remember the names of the main characters in the movie. I know Helen Hunt played Tom Hank’s sweetheart in the movie. I associate this actress with Jody Foster, somehow. There’s no reason or rhyme for it. I came upon this movie at a certain point, so I understand I missed the exciting beginning, and I probably closed my eyes briefly at some intervals. I will eventually see that part, but I just wanted to write down what I could remember about the movie and share it with you. I know I missed some details, but I believe I have captured the essence of the movie. It’s my first narrative of a fictional story, other than my own true stories. I know my words are plain in text, but I do see some improvements. Many of you had already seen this movie, but I wrote it to help improve my writing skills. The main thing is that I did write it, and I thank Stories.Com for giving me the confidence to do it.

September 02, 2002