The Island by Olivia Levez

Author:Olivia Levez
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780748771
Publisher: Oneworld Publications

Dead Man’s Bay

There are jellyfish in the trees.

They shiver, shiny and surprised.

Me and Dog blink at them as we emerge, stumbling, from the forest, and it is these that are taking our attention, not the dark bundles lying here and there on the beach.

So we don’t see the things the sea has spat out. Not at first.

Our shelter is gone.

I swallow as I take in the space where our camp used to be. Our little attempts to make a home, all vanished. The storm has torn up our roof like tissue.

Here and there, shreds of cooking pots, curls of palm roof, scraps of plastic lie twisted.

I look across the beach. One Tree has been torn out of the sand and thrown across the bay. It looks like a bent elbow, broken and pointing.

I touch a jellyfish. Already it has crisped in the sun.

Dog barks and barks from across the beach as I search for our stuff.

I find a few scraps of our kitchen: the giant clam shell we used to serve food; the sharpened twig we’d use for snail kebabs. The MARINA BAIT tub is bobbing near the rocks, near our broken fish-trap.

‘Quiet, Dog,’ I shout. ‘For frick’s sake.’

He won’t stop yapping and yapping.

I can’t see any sign of the fishing net. Our canopy, which took so long to make: hours and hours of gnawing at the trees with sharp rocks and my safety knife, jumping and swinging off the branches till they finally groaned and gave; hours and hours of dragging tree trunks through the forest, gasping in the pulsing heat. All for nothing.

And then I see the fire. Dead. The sodden log blackened and no embers, no heat, no life.

No matches.

That’s when I want to howl and howl, because I really don’t think I can take any more of this; don’t have it in me to drag myself from this wet sand and get myself standing and start all over again.

Because I can’t do it. Not on my own, not even with Dog.

There are things on the beach.

I start to gather them in my sling, not caring, not seeing:

A trainer, half-buried in the sand.

A set of headphones, the kind that lock you in so no one hears or sees you. They have a skull sticker on them, half-scratched away by the sea.

A piece of metal, twisted by a madman. It’s white and silver and looks vaguely familiar.

Dog’s really going for it now, hopping back and forth, sniffing at one of those dark bundles and then leaping back as if he’s been stung.

No matches, I think. No fire, no matches, no way to boil water.

I make my way up to Dog slowly ’cause it’s difficult to walk when your legs feel like stone. It still doesn’t register, not even when I see the pelicans swoop, whup-whup-whup-ing across the sea. Not even when I see the sandflies fizzing and jostling like they’re at a circus.

Not even when I see what’s all over Dog’s nose.

He grins at me, tail wagging.

‘What’s that,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.