Paradise
One
Doug
Hiser
Shelly
had fallen in puppy love during high school.
She married shortly after. He was
a good husband and had been a great teenage boyfriend. They dated all the way from 9th
grade to her twentieth year on earth and decided to get married. He didn’t get down on one knee or take her by
surprise. They both just talked about it
and having never dated anyone else, just thought it was the right thing to
do.
Shelly
had yellow-red hair that shone in sunlight and shimmered in candle light. She was a short girl but had sturdy legs and
a narrow waist like an athlete. She was
smart and funny and serious and sad.
Shelly was quite an introspective person and a sympathetic soul.
She
kissed her husband goodbye yesterday because he had to go to work and she
caught a flight to Hawaii for a business conference. She never arrived.
After
the plane went down, she found herself floundering in rough water, breaking
waves on jagged rocks, and a sandy beach.
She swam past an airplane seat that contained a body, slumped and still
strapped in it. She swallowed salty sea
water and coughed as she struggled in the surf.
The white foam covered her face with each surge and she finally pushed
herself forward, almost crashing hard into a rough lava pitted rock as she
found the sandy bottom and fought her way to the beach.
Face
down on the sand, she coughed up saltwater and put her head down, breathing
heavily. She tried to get up and glanced
back at the ocean. Nothing. The plane was gone. She saw flashes of orange and red, yellow,
green, things floating in the waves.
People, dead people floating. She
saw life jackets, clothing, and a big piece of silver metal sticking up by some
large rocks like a monument of abstract sculpture to mark the tragic
impact. Shelly closed her eyes.
The
cool ocean breezes always felt good early in the morning and Shelly tied back
her hair with a piece of ragged cloth as she left her palm hut near the
beach. Multi-colored small parrots
cackled at her as if saying,” Good morning,” in their black tongued
voices. She checked the bamboo traps in
the surf and gathered the few crabs found inside, putting them into a flight
attendant’s carry-all bag. Two weeks ago
after the crash, she had scoured the beach for anything she could find
useful. The several dead people were horrible
finds and she left the bodies where she found them and avoided the location
after that. She had traveled around the
island each day exploring. The island
wasn’t a big place and in a few days she had covered most of it. As far as she could tell there were no
inhabitants.
She
erected her crude shelter on the opposite side of the island of the crash to
avoid the decaying dead people. At least
she had found a safety kit floating that contained matches and Band-Aids and
other useful things. There was plenty of fruit and the island also had fresh
water cascading down from small mountains and running into clear flowing
streams back into the sea. Shelly had no
idea where on planet Earth this island was located, but knew it had to be
somewhere on the way to Hawaii, unless of course somehow the plane had gotten
off the regular track and flown way of course.
She thought about rescue and she built a sign for HELP, out of coconuts,
on the beach. Each day she felt more
alive than before. She missed her husband and her family but somehow she felt
guilty that she also felt happy here.
She talked to the three parrots as they cackled at her. The worst night was two nights ago when a
storm had passed over the island.
Lightning flashed like massive crackles that lit up the world and the
winds and driving rain smashed half of her shelter to the ground. She shivered and crawled under her torn palm
frond roof and waited for the storm to move on.
The next day she repaired her shelter and the parrots flew around her
head as if encouraging her. The storm
attack and the courage she found in surviving here gave her renewed strength
and confidence.
Sometimes
Shelly would sit near a shallow lagoon and stare at the water for hours. Her new home was a beautiful place. Giant palm trees shaded the edges of the
lagoon and on some days six to ten dolphins would enter the lagoon and
entertain her for hours, splashing and leaping.
She would bathe in the lagoon or go inland to bathe and wash her pants
and shirt in fresh water beneath a waterfall.
Shelly
was bathing one overcast day, almost as if the clouds were grumbling out a
warning of danger for her, when she came out of the water to find a huge snake
resting on her clothing. The only weapon
she had found in the plane crash debris was a kitchen knife and it was in her
pants pocket beneath the snake. She had
no idea if the snake was poisonous or harmless. She only knew a fear of snakes
and felt it would either bite her with fangs containing poison or coil around
her and choke her to death. Shelly took
no chances and smashed the snake into submission with a large head sized rock. The incident made her stronger. She had found courage that she never knew
existed. The island belonged to her.
Shelly
hiked to the south end of the island where huge boulders protruded from the sea
like Neptune’s throne room, massive chairs made for giant mermen and mermaids
to sit and rule over the ocean. She
liked to sit on the giant rocks and watch for the whales that sometimes came by
the island. She first noticed them by
the spray that shot up like smoke from the horizon. Sometimes she was lucky enough to see them
breaching and smashing back down onto the surface like gigantic dirigibles
falling from the sky impacting with the waves.
She always thought she might see a ship out there on that far away
horizon but if she did see one she was not sure what she would do.
Each
night she would start her small fire, sometimes she practiced starting fire
with a stick and a tree branch and she finally figured out how to get one
going. She knew the matches wouldn’t
last forever. Shelly made meals of fruit
and crab or spiny lobster. Sometimes she
speared a fish with her sharpened spear.
One day she speared a small octopus and she thought cooking it in
coconut juice in a piece of curved metal from the crash was the best calamari
she had ever tasted. Shelly missed
people and the civilized world less and less.
She fell into an easy life filled with her hunting and gathering chores
in the mornings and her relaxing walks of exploration in the afternoons.
The
dolphins were swimming slowly into the lagoon and Shelly reclined in a bend on
a low hanging branch, a place where she sat many days to survey her body of
water. The dolphins had swam close to
the shore as they noticed her watching them.
Each day they grew bolder and got nearer to her as she waded out into
the water to get closer. Today as the
smooth silver mammals splashed and frolicked swimming into the lagoon, Shelly
climbed down and removed her clothes, walking out into the clear turquoise
water. As she swam out to them she felt
an adrenalin rush and thought maybe she was crazy. She felt the fear just below her skin,
wondering if the big dolphins might attack her.
Before she could turn back she was surrounded by long smooth silver
creatures swimming in circles around her.
She tread water as each dolphin seemed to come close, almost touching
her and then retreat as another would swim in near her. Slowly, it seemed like forever, but was only
seconds, her fear departed and she smiled as each dolphin seemed to introduce
themselves to this strange mermaid with legs.
Gradually as each one approached she would touch the smooth wet rubbery
skin of their fins or rub the top of their head. She began to swim around with them and dive
beneath the water, playing a game of tag.
She stopped abruptly when she heard thunder in the distance and looked
out over the ocean. The sky had grown
darker like a menacing black monster made from billowing smoke and ash. In the distance she saw flashes of white
lightning break open the sky. The
dolphins began leaping into the air chattering and then suddenly they
disappeared beneath the water. Within
seconds she was alone in the lagoon and saw the silver fins of her new friends
swimming out and around the shoreline, away from the storm. Shelly swam for shore and ran to prepare for
the monster to come to her front door.
The
storm raged most of the night and she covered herself with palm fronds and
endured the cold sheets of rain as best she could. When the rain stopped she started a fire and
stripped, hanging her clothes up to dry and warmed herself. When she was dry she curled up beside the
small fire and slept until daybreak. Her
little house was wrecked again. Instead
of getting to work repairing the damage she decided to explore inland. The parrots buzzed by her head squawking at
her and they flew from tree to tree along the jungle path. She wondered how the jungle path had been
created. She had never seen anything
larger than a monkey on the island and the path was well worn and wide enough
for large animals.
She
thought about the small mammals she had seen, rabbits, rats, mice, small
monkeys, bats, and even a cream colored badger like animal. She had also encountered a three foot long
monitor lizard and sea turtles in the lagoon and on the beach. She had thought about searching for turtle
nests if she got hungry for eggs. Her
diet of fruit and sea creatures had satisfied her but she thought maybe she
might trap a rabbit or a bird. Walking
the path today she encountered a large track, bigger than anything she had seen
before.
She traveled inland, following a clear rushing creek
flowing smoothly over a bottom filled with coin sized pebbles. She came out of the jungle and into a
hillside covered in tall yellow grass. She
encountered colorful birds in the tall grass, almost like pheasants with long
bright scarlet tail feathers. She walked
alongside the flowing water until it led her to a wall of jagged rock, forty or
fifty feet high. A waterfall dropped
mist and gallons of water into a pool at the base of the wall. She thought it was beautiful, this little
oasis of falling water and the rough wall of rock standing near tall cliffs
with the fields of grass behind her. The large tracks, round like pancakes with
deep toes, were in the sandy mud all around the pool. The rock wall seemed so out of place here on
the center of the island, almost like if some giant colossus dropped it here to
make a stone fence across the landscape, maybe to keep some big creature on one
side of the island or just a barrier to slow down hurricane force winds from
destroying the jungle trees. Admiring
the scene, Shelly once again saw the large mysterious footprints. She looked
around the fields but only the grass swayed with ocean breezes. Shelley noticed
a worn path near the wall leading south towards the ocean. She didn’t see any of the large tracks but
something had to have walked this path regularly to make it so smooth and
worn. The winds picked up and her long
hair blew about her face as she hiked the trail south. She felt vulnerable for the first time since
she had discovered her new courage.
That’s
when she heard the sound. Behind
her…Snorting, repeated snorting, heavy footprints trampling the ground. She was afraid to turn and look. The waterfall rumbled down the rock wall with
a solid roar but the snorting sounds were voluminous and carried weight over
the cascading water. Slowly she twisted
her neck and shifted her feet to look back.
The pond was surrounded by the snorting massive things.
Shelly was astonished and
could only stare at the site. The beasts
were huge. There were at least ten of
them, maybe more. Their dark skin was
almost black and looked like leather armor.
They snorted and stared back at her but only in a disinterested fashion,
as if she were but a small rodent scurrying about the grass. Each animal must have weighed a ton and were
taller than her at the shoulder. Their
snouts sported dangerous looking horns resembling some sort of monster
unicorn. She knew that they were a sort
of rhinoceros but a big strange one almost from a dream land of
impossible. The animals drank from the
water and snorted and some of them jogged around, light on their big toes like
an armored ballerina.
Her
stomach felt cold and empty. She watched
the immense animals as they seemed to lose interest in her. This island had captured her imagination in
so many ways and now to find such a beautiful incredible creature it left her
in a stunned amazement. Shelly sat down
on a small rock about forty yards away from the dark skinned armored creatures
and wiped the hair from her forehead. The
rhinos milled around the edges of the water and some began to browse on the
tall grasses. Shelly stood to leave and
as she turned one of the smaller rhinos trotted slowly in her direction. She stopped and stood as still as possible,
afraid to run or move. The animal
stopped a few feet from her and sniffed the ground near her feet and smelled
her scent, its snout touching her chest and hair. Shelly held her breath. She looked into the creature’s eye and felt
something shift in her world. The rhino
tossed its head and swished the air with that long horn on its snout. With its tail in the air the rhino trotted
back to the herd.
Shelly
walked into the jungle, following the trail she knew would lead her back to her
shelter near the beach. She felt like a
queen. She could feel the air from the
island surging inside her lungs. That
air was giving her magic and power to be the majestic ruler of this
island. She was the caretaker of
dolphins and rhinos. This was her
calling. This island was her world. No ship would come. No plane would find her. She would build and plan and design her
future and her life. The next day she
found a parachute hanging from a tree.
She
took it down and for the next three days she worked on her shelter, turning it
into a more permanent home, with bamboo floors and a roof of palm fronds and
parts of the parachute. The next few
weeks she stayed near the ocean making fish and crab traps and visiting her
lagoon and swimming with the dolphins that she loved so much. She kept thinking about the parachute. She wondered if somebody had survived and
landed on her island. There was no
evidence of anyone landing and she just thought maybe they had died or fallen
into the sea. Shelly did not want
company. She wanted to be left alone in
her own new world. She found solitude
and paradise here.
She
knew it was only paradise because no one else were here. Inside her heart had grown bigger and her
soul had filled up with magic. Paradise
can only be in such an isolated place.
She knew that others, humans, that virus to which she belonged were like
a plague and destroyed paradise wherever they went. Shelly gathered beautiful shells and added
them to her mounting collections in her shell garden around her little
home.
She
sometimes traveled to the wall and visited with the rhinos. They were becoming used to her and would
approach and sometimes brush against her with their rough wrinkled hides. She would scratch them behind the ears but
doubted they could feel anything through their armor coating. The macaws followed on her forays squawking
at her to give them some bananas or other fruit. Shelly ate from the trees and from the sea. She could start in a fire in less than sixty
seconds. She could climb any tree even
faster. She was leaner and more
physically fit than she had ever been in her life. She hardly even remembered her other
civilized life. She marveled at the
clear blue sky and the cloud formations at dusk and dawn. The rain quenched her thirst and filled her
containers. The monkeys scolded her
climbing into their trees and the macaws sat on her head and shoulders eating
from her fingers. She had only
infrequently hear or saw passing jets and she had removed any sign from the
beaches that she had ever been there.
She only killed one more snake in the jungle. This time with her crude sharpened
spear. Two months has passed since the
waves had brought her to the beach.
She
still thought about the parachute. The
island was big enough for someone else to be hiding out there somewhere. This was the only thing she ever worried
about. The thought of another person
moving about on her island scared her.
She worried about the rhinos. She
worried about the dolphins.
It had rained lightly
that next day and when the clouds still covered the beach Shelly hiked towards
the wall. That afternoon she sat upon a
boulder worn smooth by the ocean winds for centuries. The rhinos grazed in the near distance in the
tall grass. A macaw perched in a tree
near the waterfall by the rock wall. Her
spirit settled into her skin like a resting leaf that had floated down from the
tallest tree to land with a faint ripple in the clearest pool of still
water. The depths of her love for this
place could not be reached. She gazed
out over the land as if it were the most precious lover she had ever
known. The island wind was her kiss, the
jungle and the ocean were her mother and father. The dolphins and the rhinos her brothers and
sisters. There was nothing else she
could have yearned for. Shelly was
complete and this bliss, she knew came from her creator.
All
people find their complete happiness in many different things and Shelly reveled
in the accident that had brought her to this revelation of pureness. She reclined on the rock beneath the rolling
clouds, she let her mind drift. She
dreamed of flying like the macaws. She
opened her eyes and saw the small plane overhead and then heard the slight hum
of the motor. Tears formed in her
eyes. Shelly saw the rhinos snorting and
stamping the ground before they stampeded into the jungle of sheltering trees. She jumped off the boulder like an antelope
and ran for the cover of the jungle. The
plane’s motor rumbled louder as it flew closer.
Shelly ran under the cover of the trees and felt like the plane was
following her and flying lower and lower.
The
next day Shelly watched the men as they gathered around the plane, which had
landed yesterday in the grassy field.
She had climbed the rock wall and hid in the many clusters of boulders
that formed small caves in its heights.
She knew the men had found her little home on the beach. She would have to hide until they give up and
leave. That parachute had brought
them. She hoped the rhinos stayed
hidden. The macaws had followed her as
she had climbed the dangerous sheer rock wall.
The
men had hiked all over the island and in three days they finally took their
plane back into the sky and left her island.
Shelly knew that someday they might be back. She would move her home up high and hide on
the rock wall. That next morning she
dismantled her beach home and wiped it from existence. She found a note written on paper left by the
men from the plane. She did not read it
and burned it in her fire. That morning
she also went out and swam with her dolphins.
Shelly
walked through the grassy field with the huge rhinos slowly moving around
her. She patted their heads and their
great horns. She put her hand on a
rhino’s head and swinging herself up by climbing on the tough armor she
stretched out on the beast’s wide back.
With macaws chattering and flying above her, Shelly rode towards the
waterfall and the magnificent pool on the back of a great dark animal that had
become her brother in a place called paradise.
