Broken Pieces

I don't know when I first came to the Island. I can't begin to tell you how I got here or why. All I can remember is walking up on the beach one morning with no idea where on Earth I was or who brought me here.

I know someone brought me here because I can remember my life before I came to the Island. I had a job, a boyfriend, a nice apartment in the city, and I remember I was happy... really, genuinely happy with life. So many times I thought that I would awake and this would all be a dream, but each morning when I would wake up on the Island, I knew this was anything but a dream. The Island was very real... and I seemed trapped here.

I have a treehouse that I live in. I found it already built and waiting for me when I arrived. I had circled the Island--twice--before quickly realizing that A). there was no way of escape and B). I was very much alone. And yet, some ghostly presence seemed to follow me around. I would turn my back and suddenly the table was set with food or a new outfit was laid out on my bed. Someone knew I was here, I just couldn't see them.

I would keep track of the days, carving a little notch into the bark of the tree just outside my door... but I eventually lost track after five months.

I filled my days with nothing. I read a lot of books (again, my ghostly companion supplied the titles it thought I would enjoy). I would swim in the ocean. I would hike through the paths that cut across the Island--one day I found a beautiful waterfall that I was never able to find again. I became quite the artist, covering the walls of my treehouse in countless doodles. And I would write letters in the sand before the tide rose high enough to wash them away.

Who would I write letters to? No one in particular. At first, I wrote to my boyfriend and told him how I had actually begun to fall out of love with him long before I arrived on the Island and begged him to forget about me and go, find someone else to be happy with; to my mom, telling her just how much she meant to me, even if I had failed to show it through the years; and to my dad, forgiving him for leaving us when I was eight. But eventually, I got tired of writing to the same people over and over again... and so, I began to write letters to strangers that I imagined were just as lost and alone as I was, stranded somewhere beyond the horizon.

One morning, jut as the sun was rising, I found myself walking along the water's edge, letting the waves just barely kiss my toes, when something out of the ordinary on my little Island caught my eye.

It was a bottle. A green, broken bottle buried in the sand.

My Island had always been so pristine--everything was as it wanted me to see it, perfect and in order. This bottle was not from the Island, I knew the moment my eyes fell upon it.

Excitement rose up in my chest as I knelt down in the wet sand and dug around the bottle, wary of the broken shards.

As I pulled the bottle free, a piece of rolled up paper fell out onto my lap.

My fingers covered in sand, I unrolled the paper and realized it was a letter... a letter to me.

My dear secret companion across the water,

   I want to thank you for your letter. It has been some time since I have had any contact from a soul beyond the confines of my Island.

   I hope that by some miracle, this bottle finds its way to you. I found your words etched into the sand of my beach, but, alas, I only read half of it before the merciless waves came and swept it away. And so, I do not even know your name.

   My name is Delaney and I have been on this Island for nearly one-hundred years now. It has been a lonesome and arduous time but I believe that one who writes as beautifully as you, will be able to persevere and maybe one day find a way off your Island.

   I hope that one day, our paths will cross if it is the Fates’ will. But if not, please know that I am always thinking of you. I know that you live. I know that you still feel. And, above all, please know that there is someone in this world who remembers you and loves you… For it is all I can do from this distance.

Until Next Time,

Delaney

I continued to stare down at his name long after I had finished reading the letter.

There was another out here, trapped, just like me. I had questioned my sanity so many times. I had thought that, perhaps, I was dead and this was, in fact, Hell. But no. There was someone else here with me... I was not alone.

Pushing myself up from the sand, I spun around to look out across the bright blue water, my eyes scanning the horizon, searching for any sign of land--of another Island.

I didn't know who this Delaney was or where he was, but I did know one thing--I was going to get off this damned Island and I was going to find him.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Novosibirsk is a big city and what I've learned about big cities is that they tend to be a bit dirtier than the suburbs I grew up in. There is an intersection just outside my apartment complex that is just littered with broken glass. The first time I saw it, I was annoyed and frustrated, my grandmother's age old rule of "Don't litter!" echoing in my head. But as I was walking home one evening from work, the sun hit the shards of glass perfectly to make them sparkle and for a moment, I saw the garbage as something beautiful.

Yesterday, my eyes fell upon the neck of a broken bottle. I stopped to take a picture of it, instantly creating this story in my mind.

You could take this story in any number of ways. It could literally be the story of a girl mysteriously transported to a desert island somewhere for some unknown reason. Or (I realized as I was writing it), you could look at it as a part of the afterlife. Maybe when we first die, we are transported to this new place. We remember who we are and we're not scared--everything is taken care of for us. But we are alone... until we decide to reach out to anyone who might listen. And it is only through reaching out to others, that we can connect and move on from our solitary existence on that island. I don't know! It was just something I thought of as I was typing this story.

And I just LOVE messages in bottles. It's a dream of mine to find one someday. Just imagine, finding someone's words--someone's heart--hidden inside a bottle after it went on a wild and crazy nautical adventure. I admit (sorry Gramma Aw, I did litter), I have sent a message in a bottle. I did it while I was on a cruise in the Mediterranean... I have yet to hear if anyone ever found it.

a.r.w.