Room with a Jungle View by Jill Varley

Author:Jill Varley [Varley, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781491709665
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2013-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

UNCOMFORTABLE ON THE HARD, DIRT-COVERED rock surface on which I’ve sprawled, I’m at least thankful to have it and also grateful to whoever actually lives in this little cave, as they’ve given me a break and are allowing me to intrude for the night. Perhaps the tenant of the cave is close by, keeping watch or even skulking in the night for food and water. I too have become an animal on the island, with survival my only goal.

Throughout the night, I manage to sleep, and my thoughts and dreams are mixed with a roller coaster of emotion.

Remembering back to my sad, little apartment on the fifth floor of an average apartment building in Toronto, I long to be there and review every inch of the place in my mind to remind myself that there is a home waiting for my return. From the purple walls to my aged lazy boy and small television, the thought of my relaxing weekend mornings with coffee and cigarettes forces an involuntary groan to waft from my lips. Oh, cigarettes. Quitting drinking cold turkey was stupid enough of a feat. Now shipwrecked, cold turkey for my smoking habit has also been enforced. I expect my body to seize like a tetanus patient without its main sources of nourishment. Alone, confined to the cave in solitude with nothing but my shivering and the evening dew creeping onto my face to keep me company, my life now is foreign. If I ever make it home, I doubt that I’ll return the same person. If and when I get back to Toronto, I’ll open a center for celebrities and work with Jeff Probst to drop them onto random islands until the court-ordered rehab stint is complete and they emerge reborn. What a killing I’d make! Dear Lindsay Lohan…

Wondering what day of the week I’m napping into, my brother, Jake, wanders into my thoughts. He’s likely busy with his new secret romance. Maybe they’ve already broken up, and he needs to talk to me. Hopefully by now Jake has called my apartment searching for me and will be the one to finally realize that I’m gone.

My mind wanders next to my mother, my work, my colleagues, friends, Alistair. In a lot of ways, right now we’re in the same predicament. Both lonely, locked up, and hidden away from all that we previously knew. The only difference of course is that Al is perfectly safe in his cell, and I’m on a dangerous island destined to die alone and rot in the sand. The very thought of a lonely perish brings me to tears.

Barely waking up in the darkness, I’m suddenly startled with a horrid realization. Smoke. Sniffing myself completely awake like a dog waking to the aroma of its master cooking morning bacon, the more I surface from my slumber, the more that ol’ feeling of adrenaline and panic starts to percolate through my veins. Peeking through the bushes at the door of my cave, without parting the leaves, keeping cover, I see nothing, but there’s a definite odor of smoke in the air.

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