A Tangent Ship On The Horizon

I had been living on Butchers island now for what seemed like an eternity but it was actually two and a half years since I had seen anyone or anything that remotely looked like civilization. I was confident in the beginning that they had sent out a search party for me considering I was one of the most sought-after philanthropists in the northern hemisphere, but as time went by, I began to lose hope that anyone was ever going to come and rescue me.

Fortunately, this little island was a veritable smorgasbord of vegetation, and plenty of birds flew over this deserted island just to feed, that is until I started to feed on the birds themselves, I was hardly a vegetarian.

Be that as it may, if there had not been any birds, I would have had to become a vegetarian without question, without choice. I was grateful to be able to eat. Without it, I simply would have perished. I had set several SOS signal fires in strategic areas of the island because I was surrounded by water and lots of it. I knew I never should have gotten on that godforsaken cruise liner.

how in the hell could well over five hundred passengers and employees die at sea, and yet I was the only survivor? it was unbelievable. I suppose they probably just figured everybody died. But it didn't dampen my spirits at first, I hoped beyond hope that somehow they would find this little person in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, I know you are probably thinking what a delusional idiot, and maybe you are right from your point of view, but if we switched places I'd bet you couldn't find anything else to do but hope like hell that you'd get off this rock of an island.

Now I wasn't without my mad set of skills, I had all the creature comforts of home, mind you nothing from the boat survived either, everything was made right here on this island from its various raw materials. I would thank god every day for my family because we had grown up as farmers, and instead of me joining the boy scouts mind you, I joined the Future Farmers of America, and I was grateful I had.

I often dreamed of what I would do once I got off this rock , if I ever did.

And I promised myself, my god, and all the birds I had feasted upon and drank coconut milk till I hated it, that I would definitely travel less and help those less fortunate become more fortunate in mind and spirit, because nothing was as worse as being utterly alone with no interaction for over two years. My innate optimism began to wane such as it was, my silver lining became tarnished, my humor became morose, I felt I had come to the brink of my sanity. When , suddenly I heard a faint foghorn. I froze!

I couldn't believe it, motionless I stood waiting to hear it again, after a brief pause I heard it again, I began to run like the wind to the highest point which was roughly half a mile , when I got to the landing I began looking all around me circularly and there they were, not one but two ships on the horizon!

I began to sing, and scream, and holler at the top of my lungs as if they could actually hear me, which they couldn't cause they were still so far away, I barely could keep a trained eye on them. I set two of the seven bonfires I had prepared, they were pretty big, I had spent a long time preparing them so they wouldn't burn the whole island down.

Once the fires were lit, I ran down to my camp and began throwing stuff in a bag I made myself, all excited, I quickly washed up and changed into my clothes that I was marooned with, I never did wear them once I spent more and more time here. I thought to myself, 'it was about time those darned fools came to get me'!

I proceeded to leave my gear near the shoreline and raced back up to the peak of Butchers Island, and named rightly so , because I had to butcher all those birds in order to eat. when I got to the landing again, I looked in the same spot where the ships were, but this time I couldn't see them!

No! this is horrible I thought, surely they saw the fires burning, I began to panic and cry, was this a mirage? No, it couldn't have been there was nothing wrong with my eyesight. I was sure I had seen two ships on the horizon, but now I saw no trace of them ever having been there! maybe I was going insane, I thought.

After reeling from defeat, I sat on the landing for hours lamenting and watching the embers of the fires growing dimmer and dimmer realizing that I was never going to get off this island. what I had witnessed was like a mathematical problem of a tangent line when it meets another, and never meets it again. these two ships met each other, and I'll never see them again!

finis