• An Essay on the Successes and Failures of Island Life

    There I was, stranded on that God forsaken island with only a baboon, a wildcat and some showy cockatoo to keep me company. Of course there were no other living creatures on the island with me; not even misquitoes. I knew the struggle for food would be the hardest, since I never found any edible vegitation for myself, and there were only three animals. Even if I managed to catch them, there was no way I could make them last. Survival wouldn't happen. But I tried...every day was the same struggle.

    Every morning I got up and I had to face the baboon. It would make these vulgar faces at me, drink my stored water and dance around the smoking embers of last night's fire. I'd try to catch it to eat, but all it did was mimic me so perfectly that all I could do was turn around and leave in disgust. I couldn't kill myself, or anything like me while I was stranded. When you're stranded you're supposed to survive, and if you go on doing things like killing your likeness, you might start to believe you're really dead. Then you go crazy. So no, I couldn't kill the baboon. After that I'd turn around and try to find cockatoo. I'd finally find it, up in a tree or something, so I'd throw things at it to try and get it down. The blasted creature would just shreik and puff it's feathers up, dancing around from branch to branch. I got tired quickly.

    Naturally, the next logical step was to go to the beach and look for anything that might be creeping in the water, or beached and bloated, dead and tasty. There lay the next trap, the wily little wildcat. She would sneak behind me, putting her paws where I had stepped. And when I had found something good to eat, she would leap out in front of me, snatch it from my grasp and devour it right before my eyes. Oh, how I longed to do away with that stupid cat! Why couldn't I just spear the creature and fry HER up to eat? But everytime I tried she would dart away. Alas, I left the beach every day with an empty stomach and tired limbs.

    On my journey to my makeshift home (for it was always late in the day by this time), I would find the baboon drinking the water I had collected in a banana leaf. He lapped it up like a dog might, and when he was done I could see the glossy spit fragments floating on the surface. I had too much pride to drink, so every day I went without water. Towards the night, I would see the cockatoo nestled into it's own wing across from my tent, at a wonderfully low height. It always seemed too good to be true! The thing slept so soundly, so peacefully, and looked so delicious (let us not forget that my previous attempts at finding food to eat were failures) that I couldn't help myself! I dove for it, wrapping my hands around it's flamboyant little neck and struggling with it. It clawed at me, and beat me with it's wings. It bit me with it's beak, but I wrung it's neck so it could not move.
    The thing still schreeched it's hardest in defiance and horror, all the time while I impaled the feathered fiend on a stick and built a fire. I fried it up, feathers and beak and taunting eyeballs; all of it!

    Every night I swore I ate that bird, but I see it every day afterwards! Perhaps I shall kill the baboon tomorrow for a change. At least I'll know if it's truly dead!