The Island, the Notebook and the Dead Man's Jacket

Day 1:

So...not sure how to start this really. 'Dear Diary' feels like some little girl wrote it and 'Dear whoever's reading this, 'cos if I didn't give it to you you've probably tripped over my corpse already', feels excessive. I'll just write then. Nothing else to do. I hope I won't regret picking you. I'm talking to this book here in my hands by the way. Don't know if I'm much of a writer but I'll give it my best shot. Guess I should explain myself a bit.

I had to get the anger out somehow first you know? Kick a few palm trees, throw rocks at the ocean, lay screaming in the sand like the lunatic I'm probably going to turn in to. I've just had my ass kicked off a great yacht onto this pathetic scrub of land, somewhere in the Pacific. They told me, "You can pick two things to take with you to the island."

There was very little on offer, no booze, no cigarettes, nothing. I took the jacket off one of the fallen men. What? He didn't need it anymore, that's for sure. It was a nice jacket and I know how these tropical nights get, I thought I might need it. And among the pile of crap they directed me to, laughing their triumphant heads off all the while, was this small, black notebook I'm writing in now, with a pen attached inside. If this was the only company I'd get I thought I should take it. Maybe doing this will keep me sane. Ah but who am I, right?

The name's Joe, they call me 'Joey the Fist', on account of what I'm good at. Fighting, not fisting, just to be clear. But maybe now they'll call me 'Joey the guy who should have listened to his mother'. Poor ma, she never wanted me getting mixed up in any of this, begged me to get out of it. But to do what? Wait on tables, be a garbage collector? I'd dropped out of College, wanted to work with my closest friend on his car dealership business, but of course, that was an almighty flop and in the end, so was the friendship. I had to provide for the family, they'd helped me pay for school and now I'd effectively shown them the middle finger and nothing else. Dust bunnies in my pockets. I had a bit of education but nowhere decent was going to give me a job.

That's how I fell in with the guys that put me here. What happened to get me kicked off the yacht? I backed the wrong guy, but that's a story for another day. My wrist is getting tired, and I'm gonna need all the strength I've got left to survive. At least there's a hut here already, I spotted it when I was running around screaming and kicking things. I'm not gonna be left huddling under a bunch of twigs I've tied together at the very least. Wonder what happened to the last guy, the one who built it? Cos the poor bastard's certainly not here now. I hope he got out.

Day 2:

I was in luck with the hut. It pissed down with rain last night, and I was able to make use of that. Found some old canvas to catch the rain water and a big, plastic container. I saw some fish in the shallows and a rusty knife in one corner of the hut. Could try to catch something, else I don't know how long I'll be living off coconuts. Everything else is a mystery, don't know what I can and can't eat. If I'm gonna die here, I'd rather it not be whilst squatting or puking my guts up. At least I have some kind of survival training, pops was in the navy... What would he think of me now? Scum he'd call me. Disgrace to my country. Good thing he never lived to see any of this or I suppose, what lead up to it.

Better me here than poor Billy. He'd have no idea where to start, wouldn't last 3 days. I should never have let that kid convince me to bring him on. 18 years old, barely a man. They would have dumped the bodies by now. Billy's lost his eyes to the fish as I write this.

Can't dwell on that now. I need a walk.

Day 4:

There was nothing much to say on Day 3, but today, today I had to document. Couldn't believe my eyes. Feels like God is playing with me, trying to teach me some grand lesson before I go to meet my maker. I can't believe I didn't check the pockets of this damn jacket until now. What did I find? $20,000, that's right, twenty big ones sneakily sitting in my inner breast pocket.

I wonder if they'll come back for that when they realize it was in the jacket? Maybe they had no idea. Even as I'm writing this I know it's almost certain they won't care. Not like them coming back would help me anyway. The big boys turn over bigger bucks than this. But for me, this is big. Or at least, it would have been. Fat load of good it's doing me now. Might as well use it for tinder to start the fire at night. This amount of money would keep the family going for months. If I survive, it still could. If. If is only a dream.

I've been chasing money for so long. Isn't that life spitting on my face? I finally get some but only when it's worthless. There's things you can't put a price on, freedom, safety. Why did it take being reduced to crapping in the sand to realize that?

Day Unknown:

I've lost track of days by this point. Though it can't really have been that long. I wonder how Alice's doing. Best pair of jugs I've ever seen, best laughter too. Not just that but she knows how to get you laughing with her. Why did I want to wait until I'd made it to marry her? Maybe it's better this way. I'm glad I didn't make her a widow at 22.

Day...Who really cares at this point?:

I mean I'm surviving but just. Water is down and I'm running out of coconuts to find. I've never spent so long on my own before. Not even seeing a single soul a mile away. No ships have passed.

Is this really it?

I always thought I'd either live to be surrounded by two further generations of my own creation or go out swinging. That's what got me into this mess right? The fighting. I'd dreamed of big money, but it was clear I had no head for business or studying. Getting into that college I'd been scraping the barrel anyway. Couldn't afford to try and do it again either. No, but I'd always been good at fighting. Pops had taught me, thought maybe I'd join the forces like him. Maybe I should have done. A more honorable way of dying at least.

Instead I got noticed by the right guys at the wrong time. Fighting and talking my way out of scrapes, that's what I was good it. Got people to bet on me, set up fights underground, one of my many odd jobs I was hustling to turn a buck. That's when I met Jones. He saw potential in me and made me one of his guys. I'd been with Fat Jones for a long time. Why are they always so damn fat? Probably because they don't actually do any of the work. But they are damn good at getting other people to do it. In the rings of organized crime, you either have to be good at leading or good at following. I didn't know if I could take the heat of leading but I certainly wanted a bigger slice of the pie.

I'd been getting frustrated with the way things were run. Making money in bursts here and there, nothing big. Fat Jones didn't giver or split generously. Progress was slow, didn't matter how hard you worked or how loyal you were. You had to wait for the guy above you to be gone if you wanted to move up the ranks, and you'd say goodnight too if you were the one to make that happen.

A few months ago there was a new guy on the block. Young, not fat, at least, not yet, who lead some of the smaller heists but split all fairly, never taking the bigger cut he was entitled to. Now that was the kind of guy I wanted to follow. Too bad that there were more traditionalists in these circles than fair thinkers. That included the ones who pretended to be on our side until they needed to be. We were gonna take over whilst the main group was isolated at sea, well didn't that turn around to bite us?

I was the only one who survived our little uprising. All these faces come to my mind now, as bloated islands, floating on the tide. But not me. Not me. Why?

They knew didn't they?

They knew I'd rather die getting sliced slowly fighting them all than be stuck here. Waiting passively for death like I was bending over for it and letting it take me whenever it saw fit. Nothing and no one to fight. Couldn't talk my way out of this one either, but could end up crazed talking to myself. Feel like that might be happening already.

They knew that. That's why they didn't kill me.

Of course I can see how the torture of slowly starving, or dying in some other slow way, not a friend in the world, is the ultimate punishment for betrayal. Yet I don't want to put an end to it myself either. I'm a fighter. I can't throw in the towel.

I'm laying here, watching the blue sky through the palm fronds. It could be paradise, but it's my own living hell. I'll never see my family again. It was all for nothing.

No point counting days unless they mean something. No point having money with no one to share it with and nothing to spend it on. I wish I could take it all back and never have gone down this path. I wish writing that down could make it happen.

Maybe I'll survive this somehow.

But you're no magical notebook. There's no magic here.

My pen's running out of ink.