adrift

we had lived there for what could have been months, years, perhaps decades.  we were unsure of our Names until the event.  it was sprint, hunter, architect and me.  we were, i was told afterwards, shipwrecked long before; we had been young enough to forget about any life previous to this. 

we lived on the beach, never entering the jungle, where the star was.  the star was an unknown glimmer hidden in the bushes just out of sight; it reflected the sun, often causing a glare on our beach.  explorer went to find out what it was long ago, but never came back.  we always feared that jungle, to be honest, so despite how enticing the star was to our unknowing eyes, we avoided going in there.

then it happened.  the event changed us all.  we never knew anything beyond the ocean, the beach, the jungle.  we couldn’t see anything else, though some of us had wondered if there was more.  a small spot in the distance proved those notions true.  it was a small, weathered wooden boat.  the tide pulled it further in and when it finally reached the shore, we realized that it was more than just an object— underneath it were carved initials.  they were our Names.

it sat among us for what could have been hours, days or weeks.  sprint and architect wanted to know more.  it promised something beyond us.  its very nature told us we were more than what we thought we were.  hunter, however, didn’t want anything to do with it.  to him, it was a reminder that we had been wrong all this time about the nature and purpose of our lives.  ironically, before this, we had had no purpose;  he didn’t agree.

inevitably, talk of getting in this boat and perhaps seeing what was beyond the sea began to surface.  sprint wanted to, architect began planning and i must admit, even i was leaning towards leaving.  hunter could not be convinced, however.  conflicts began to arise, the intensity of which I had never seen before.  hunter clung on with desperation to his view while sprint and architect argued back, but with reason. 

one night while we were sleeping, hunter found a way to set the boat itself on fire.  i hadn’t realized how much i agreed with sprint and architect until i woke up to the smell of those flaming cinders.  we were done.  we had seen that there was more and lost any hope of getting there.  as we wept, hunter sat away from us, seemingly bitter despite his “victory”.  he spat out reasons for what he had done and mocked us for the fools he imagined us to be.  the smoke billowed up into the morning sky, mixing with the beautiful clouds that hung above our world like spirits that knew more than we ever would. 

i remember what happened next like it was yesterday.  hunter stood up with a look of horror in his face.  then there was a loud rumbling sound.  it was terrifying at the time, for we had never heard or seen anything like what was coming for us.   far away from us, where the ocean meets the sea, where the shallows give way to the depths of what we once thought was the boundary to our world, was a giant ship.  it had seen the smoke from the burning boat.

we all smiled, except for hunter of course.  he turned back and headed for the star in the jungle.  we called to him.  sprint even tried to physically drag him back, but he said he’d rather take his chances and that he would learn so much more from the star than we ever would from leaving.  to this day, i don’t know what happened to him but i had read of an old plane crash there;  perhaps it was simply the gleam from the wreckage.  i remember how attractive i once thought that was; how little i knew and understood! 

we now know and understand.  we now remember our Names.

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