In her dream, she is arranging a party. She remembers that she has invited a great many people. She is filled with the dread that springs from the surety that no one will be arriving at all. This dread is counter-punctuated by a terrifying panic that compels her to do everything in her power to ensure a successful party.

She only has ten minutes, and she wonders, “Why is my husband sprawled out like that on the putting green? Why is the backyard flooded?”

There is loud banging coming from the kitchen.

There is smoke.

When she enters, the two girls from the pleasure cruise are here. She remembers that she likes them and has hired them to help her. The prettier one has a grease-paint mustache, and both are dressed as chefs; their white outfits are stained from smoke, their faces covered in soot.

A charred animal carcass is on the counter.

“My goodness! What have you girls done? That was the main course and the guests will start arriving any moment!”

The smaller one pierces the inflated black rectangle with an over-emphasized oven fork. It exhales and collapses into a shriveled, black rectangle.

Suddenly, there is the kind of laugh track that is on those low-brow comedies the people watch on their television sets that she abhors and as the surreal absurdity of the situation sears the sensibilities of her sleeping psyche the loud gong of the doorbell.

“Oh my! The guests are arriving!”

“How can the guests be arriving? There isn’t going to be any party!” exclaims mustache.

Again the laugh track, this time she is sure there is nothing funny and its dislocation strikes a discordant chord,

...like hearing a…

...in the middle of a…

–she doesn’t know what to compare it to and her inability to recognize what is happening is scaring her even more.

The famous scientist stands in the doorway. He is wearing a tuxedo with a red sash, a giant medallion. He holds a duck in his arms. It is quacking at her.

“Please, do come in doctor! We’re having a party and, of course, you’re welcome! Why do you have a duck with you?”

She can’t remember inviting him, but one has to know how to recover in these situations.

“I don’t know. I thought it might be needed. It’s not mine. Here.”

The laugh track again.

She has the duck in her arms and she runs to the kitchen and presents it to the girls who are having an argument about the best way to sharpen a knife.

When they see the duck they begin to cry.

Laugh track.

\\\\\\\\----~*~----////////

“Bamboo is the largest species of grass. Most people are surprised when you point that out to them, but think about it. That it’s a plant is obvious, but is it a tree? A bush? A succulent or a creeper? Nope, it’s a grass. See? It’s segmented.”

This is how Roy Hinkley talks to himself inside of his own head. It’s also how he speaks to others from out of it. It’s a favorite of the kids at the high school he teaches. Particularly fond of him is the odd assortment of nerds and outcasts at the after-school chess club he sponsors.

They call him “The Professor” as a tease. It’s a well-intentioned moniker. There is nothing mean-spirited in it and it makes him feel as though he has made the right choices in life.

He was good with electronics. He had had a bright future in it, but stopped with his bachelor's degree and he began teaching when his mother became sick and the job opened up. He has never married. The teaching certificate was a breeze. Her recent death and his own curiosity resulted in this solo vacation currently realized as bamboo forest.

(--field? --lawn?)

The typhoon has passed now, but one of its spiraling arms swirls in a large arc over his head, blocking his view of the stars and moon. The tide is rolling in and will soon drag the bottomless hull out to sea.

Maybe it won't.

Maybe, if it is still there in the morning he will pull what remains of the radio. They had salvaged what they could; cushions, a couple of fishing poles, an ax, some cordage, an ice chest, a toolbox and its assorted tools, some maps, blankets, instruments for sea navigation, a first aid kit, some other things.

“I wish I knew more knots. You know that nobody knows the origin of the word ‘knot’? Some historians speculate that it’s related to the Old Norse word used for the God of Mischief: Loki.”

He turns away from the listing, burnt shipwreck and towards the volcano with its dim red glow reflecting off the clouds above itself and a spreading of bamboo below.

\\\\\\\\----~*~----////////

For the first time in a very long time, she doesn't actually need the pills. She has slept most of today away. Even when the boat had been drifting she had slept. She had caught her reflection in the water after they ran aground and she wanted to be alone and she ran away.

"Let her go. She'll come back. This island isn't that big. Where is she going to go?"

She discovered the tide pool after wandering for a bit. She stared into the sea urchins rolling this way and that, the anemones swaying gently, a sea slug that looked like a giant penis rolled around. That last one had made her think of Ira's flaccid penis. She had left him back at the hotel and he too had said something similar to the captain. She wondered what he would be thinking now.

"Go ahead and go, pill head. This island isn't that big. You'll be back."

She hadn't planned on buying a ticket. Just as she had had no plan when she left New York for Los Angeles and small parts in B-films. Just as when she had jumped on a plane with Ira and flown to Hawaii.

Her makeup is gone, and she doesn’t care that she looks terrible.

\\\\\\\\----~*~----////////

Nobody is better with knots than his small friend. That is the one thing he is better at than anybody else he has ever seen. His ability to bind, lash, secure, hitch, and, in general, tie things together is unequaled, and he is able to construct and fashion intricate arrangements of cargo in a seemingly endless variety of efficient and effective configurations.

They had met in the Merchant Marines and hit it off, running supplies to and from San Francisco to all points ending in the West Pacific and Indian Oceans, mostly.

By cosmic coincidence, they finished up their contracts at the same time and discharged in Hawaii. It was here that they executed the plan they had set up during long conversations underway.

They purchased a tiny, dilapidated ship and spent a month getting it seaworthy.

During the day they worked on it and at night they slept in it.

The pier master marveled at their ingenuity and, on more than one occasion, had fallen to the ground in fits of laughter over the saintly one’s buffoonery.

There he sits.

He sits by the fire that he has successfully made. He had acted so proud when it finally caught and slowly grew in warmth giving intensity. Now he sits with his legs pulled against his chest. His sailor's hat pulled down to warm his ears against the stiff breeze. He smiles at his captain sheepishly.

“What can he say? He knows that I know it’s his fault that the wheel had spun loose from the post sending them towards the reef that gashed its way across their port bow. It’s his fault for not attaching it properly, for using too much bearing grease, and it’s his fault for spilling scalding hot coffee across his arms at the worst possible moment. It was always the worst possible moment with him. But, ‘A friend is a friend.’” he thinks to himself.

“You've got to take the good with the bad, Jonas.”

Then he sighs and stares into the fire and then at his little buddy.

\\\\\\\\----~*~----////////

She is also a secretary, but first she is a Kansas farm girl and always will be.

It hasn’t occurred to her to be afraid or to think of rescue. She trusts God although she knows better than to talk too much about it with others. She knows that God is here now. She has walked away from the others to explore and now she sits at the foot of a giant tree. She has never seen a tree like this before. Its trunk is at least five times as thick as any tree trunk she has seen back in Kansas and twice as tall. But, then the warm ocean breeze spreads across the jungle canopy and the sound is just like when the wheat would roll and sway in vast gigantic swaths as far as the eye could see.

She knows that every cloud has a silver lining and that if they are on this island together there is a reason God put them here and right now her task is to collect wood for the fire.

She stands and gathers the pile of deadwood she has collected so far. There hadn’t been so many bugs. She had thought that there would be more as she wound her way deeper into the jungle.

“Are those drums?”

\\\\\\\\----~*~----////////

Money to be made in exotic fruits --pineapples, specifically. Sugarcane was looking interesting as well. It was a good thing they had brought a sufficient number of suitcases. If help didn’t come soon, he is glad they have prepared.

There is enough scotch to last at least a week. Perhaps, he can stretch that out to two.

Rescue will come.

When they failed to check back in at the harbor, the dock master would raise the alarm. Although, who knows how things are run in this part of the world? If it was like the other third-world countries he had visited, the dock master might not be reliable. This is the problem with these trips. There is always something wrong with the food or wrong with the hotel or the people scream and are filthy or are dishonest and you must secure your valuables.

Now that he thinks about it he realizes the dock master hadn’t inspired confidence. He didn’t seem like the solid sort you could count on. It was a good thing he had left an itinerary with Jennings. When he failed to telephone him that evening he knew that he could count on him to raise a search.

He would relay instructions to the company agent in Honolulu to get the ball rolling, and he would jump on the next Pan-American flight out to personally oversee the operation. I wonder how many ships they’ll end up having to hire? Jennings would know not to cut any corners on this one, by Jove!

He looks over at the sleeping outline of his wife. Sprawled across the sand and covered in a blanket she looks like a freight car hobo. He loudly guffaws before quickly remembering himself and he regains his composure.

She stirs in her sleep and mumbles something.

“She is dreaming.” he thinks while he stares at her.

He remembers the night they met and he feels himself moved by an unexpected increase of his emotions and his eyes make water and his vision blurs.

Again,

he regains control,

he takes another pull,

feels a smokey glow spread

from his throat to his gut

out through his limbs

towards his wife.