PART I

    My island was somewhere near Micronesia. I’m not sure exactly where. It only had two palm trees and the rest was sand with a few weeds. It was about twenty feet by twenty feet, but it was a circle, a mound really, so I’m not sure how to explain the dimensions because my math isn’t very good. I think I have to use p. Maybe pr² . Either way, it was a small island without much by way of shelter. It goes without saying that my greatest wish was to get off the island, back to civilization. But my condition seemed hopeless.

    I survived by spearing and eating fish, raw. Sushi everyday isn’t as appealing as you would think when it doesn’t come with a restaurant and sake. There were plenty of fish around and they were easy enough to catch. The little yellow fish tasted gritty and bland. The bright red ones may have been tasty but after eating them every day for as long as I have they became just as tasteless as anything else. The act of spearing and eating the fish without cooking them was savage, I’ll admit, but it was all I could do. What little nutrients I could get from them kept me alive.

     Occasionally I chewed on seaweed that washed up on shore. I even ventured to try bits of the palm tree, but I didn’t enjoy it much. Sometimes I could get a coconut from the tree, but the process was excruciatingly laborious without a good knife. All I had was a few seashells that I broke to have a sharpened edge to use for cutting. It didn’t work well.

     It rained enough that I could collect water using palm fronds like funnels. I had a few bigger shells that I would fill up every time it rained and drink from them when the island would go through dry spells. There was always enough water to keep me alive, but I was never well hydrated.

     I was sun burnt most of the time because the two palm trees didn’t provide much shade. I had nothing to soothe the burns and my lips constantly cracked and bled. The rest of my face stayed protected under my long, wild hair and beard. But both my hair and beard itched terribly because tiny, biting insects decided that they were good places to live and feast on my skin. Though I tried many remedies to get rid of them, there was nothing that I could do to keep them out.

     It was all miserable. Every second of it. Even when I thought that hope had arrived.

     What I call hope came in the form of a bottle that arrived one fortuitous evening about a year ago. As I spear fished the reef surrounding my little mound, I noticed a glass bottle, green with a cork in the top, floating in the sea. It wasn’t the first time wayward garbage had come to me. I had started a bit of a collection actually: an old boot, bits of fishing net, a sun bleached whale bone. The green bottle looked like it would add nicely to the rest of the pile.

     I waded into the water, reached the bottle, and plucked it out, noticing quickly that it had paper stuffed into it—paper and a pen.

    I remember being surprised by the sight of it. It’s hard to explain the feeling really. Those who can imagine it are few, I would think, as you would need to be isolated from the rest of the world for years in order to understand how I felt upon receiving the message in the bottle. It was a feeling of excitement. Something new was happening, something different than the dull routine that I had been living day in and day out. I doubted that the message would even be in English, but anything that proved I wasn’t alone in the world would be good enough.

    When I was back on the sand of my little island, I tipped the bottle upside down and, with the stem of an old palm frond, I fished out the roll of paper. Once the rolled papers cleared the bottleneck, the pen also shot out and landed in the sand. I hardly noticed the pen at first, my mind being focused solely on the papers. I wondered what secrets the message would contain, what information from the outside world? Perhaps it was from another person deserted on an island not too far from me, who was writing a note that would say, “Saw you on your little mound with two palms. Thought that we could send messages to one another. Sincerely, Your neighbor one mound over.” Or maybe it was news of the world, that the Micronesian government had declared a resolution to search all of their islands for new natural resources—something that meant that eventually someone would find me. Whatever it was, I’d be happy to read it.

     When I unrolled the papers and checked each one front and back, however, my heart sank. The sheets were blank. Nothing. I was once again left to absorb the horribly heavy, dark feeling of loneliness that I had been living with for three and a half years.

    It all came back to me when the loneliness settled in; all the events that had gotten me stuck on that godforsaken island. The cruise ship. The drunken stumble overboard while I rushed to talk to the French waitress who had smiled at me at dinner. No one heard the splash or my yells for help. I guess I was lucky to catch hold of a bit of driftwood.  I don’t remember how long I was holding onto it. I only remember waking up on the shore of what would become my personal prison.

    It seems silly now how I tormented myself after I saw that there was nothing on the paper. I remember shouting curses at God, though I had already stopped believing in him long ago. I couldn’t believe how miserable my condition was. The bottle didn’t even hold a newspaper clipping or magazine advertisement. It was only a couple sheets of blank, wrinkled paper…and a pen.

    Of course, the pen. I’ll never forget the pen. It’s funny that I had forgotten about it then, especially since it’s so important now. I remember wiping my eyes clear and pinching the dripping mucus away from my nose before picking it up. I wondered if it would work. And it did, just fine. When I grabbed it out of the sand, pulled off the cap and pressed the pointed head to the paper, it left a black dot, wet and heavy.

     Then, I felt joy. My emotions were like that. In one moment I would sulk in the foulest misery, and in another I would be elated. The working pen meant that I could draw, or journal. On the blank pages, I could write whatever I wanted. It didn’t take me long to decide on what that should be. There was only one thing that I could imagine writing.

     Yes, I realized that I was a speck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, an atom in the endless void. The bottle, containing a message to come rescue me, would be smaller still, an electron in the void, a piece of spatial dust in the infinity of the universe. But even spatial dust settles somewhere, gathers speed, collects more dust and blazes into the atmosphere. The message I would write, one for help, held potential in that it existed and could journey beyond the borders of my little mound. It could go where I could not, past the coral and the breaking waves, into the ocean. Perhaps it would wash up on some coast where a child would read it, pass it to his father and the father would call the Micronesian Army. They would then come and take me off the damn island.

     It was hope. The message I would write, to anyone who could read it, would at least be hope.

     Tears ran down my cheeks when I thought of the freedom that a message like that could bring. I took the pen and blinked the new tears out of my eyes, my hand still trembling too much to begin writing. I had to take deep breaths in order to compose myself enough to write two sentences:

Stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, somewhere near Micronesia, on a small island with two palms. Please, rescue me.

-          Chris Robinson

    I didn’t believe the words were real when I first read them. They couldn’t be real. What were the odds that I could get that message out to someone? It was even more unlikely that they would find me if they did read it. It was a long shot, impossible maybe, but for me it was what I needed to keep on living, to keep on believing that one day I would be off my island and back in the embrace of society.

     I carefully rolled the paper into itself and put it back into the bottle. I secured the bottle tightly with the cork that it had arrived with. I crossed myself, turned around three times, bent and bowed my head to the ground while facing east, and shouted wildly to the clouds. May this bottle find someone who can help me Lord Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Stephen Hawking. Hallelujah. Amen. And I heaved the bottle into the sea.

PART II

   The days were mind numbingly boring. The waves off the island made a constant white noise in the background. They broke about thirty yards off, where the reef was. Sometimes they crashed into themselves like collapsing giants. Other times they were calm and sifted towards me, dissipating as they got closer, like they forgot that they were waves.

    I didn’t get birds on my little mound. But I did get a bunch of blue crabs that live right where the water meets the sand. They make little holes and insert themselves sideways into them to take cover from threats. They weren’t very fast. The lack of birds made them careless and lethargic. I tried to eat a few once, but came down with violent stomach cramps and decided I’d stave off. Once, when I was feeling mischievous, I grabbed one of the little guys and threw him up into one of the palms. He didn’t last long up there. He scuttled sideways on a frond until it bent under his weight and sent him hurtling towards the ground. The fall broke one of his legs. After that he dragged himself around, much slower than before. I felt bad knowing that I did that to him. In fact, every time I saw him, for which there was plenty of opportunity given how small my island was, the sight sent me deeper into depression. With his broken leg, the crab was just as miserable as me. And I made it that way. Eventually I couldn’t stomach seeing him. I picked him up and flung him into the sea.

***

    Deep down I always believed I’d be saved. Even when years came and went, I’d think that soon someone had to come to rescue me. Someone had to receive my note, and would be on my island any day.

     I remember the bottle’s return well. I had just awoken from one of my half naps, where I’m not quite asleep and not quite awake; where I’m dreaming lightly of being in a coffee shop with some beautiful brunette who thinks my story of suffering and pain is worth something. I was just getting to the part where I’m sitting down with a book, Kafka or Steinbeck, and she asks, “Are you that Chris guy from TV?” I feign humility and respond, “Why, yes I am.” It was just at that part of the dream that I felt the weight on my brain, a kind of sixth sense that something was about to happen. When I opened my eyes, I had to squint because the midday sun took a second to adjust to. But it was unmistakable that there was something floating up to the shore.

      I had so much adrenaline shooting through me then that I stumbled over myself when I ran to the shore. I didn’t think that it might be a different bottle, or if it was the same one, that it might still be holding my same message. The thought never occurred to me then, perhaps because I still had hope. Something in me knew that the bottle was holding something for me—a response.

       I expected the new message inside to say something like:

Chris, we’re coming for you!

or

Sending the Coast Guard to find you Chris. Don’t worry!

or

Be there tomorrow Chris. We know right where you are.

     After I picked the bottle out of the water I returned to sit under one of the palms. It felt surreal. But it wasn’t a dream. It couldn’t have been a dream.

     I started shaking and almost hyperventilated. I remember having to calm myself before I could retrieve the message inside of the bottle. I could see that the paper was different than what I had sent out. It was cleaner, and wasn’t wrinkled. I recognized the bottle as the very same—green with a chip in it at the neck. Someone had sent something back. Someone was coming for me.

     The papers were hard to extract at first. There were more of them then I thought; a stack of what turned out to be ten pages all rolled together. That was the first time that I thought about shattering the bottle against one of the trees. But I didn’t want broken glass to get mixed with the sand I sat in. I also thought that the bottle might still be useful.

     I took my time with the paper and bit by bit managed to fish it out by flipping the bottle upside down and again inserting the stem of a palm frond. The palm branch was able to grab at the roll of paper and slowly accompany it through the bottle neck. It was an excruciating five minute process of trial and error before it worked. Each failure teased at the mad man inside of my head.

    When I finally got the papers out, I sat with them in my hand, eager to see what my first contact from another person would be. I trembled.

    Unrolling the papers, the first thing that caught my eye was the company letterhead. It read: Deserted Rescue Inc., with a slogan underneath that said Serving your unique rescue needs since 2003. Alongside the name and the slogan there was a company logo that was curiously similar to my situation. It was a silhouette of a man on his own island mound, sitting against a palm tree that arched over his head. The only difference between the man in the logo and I was that my island had two palms and he only had one. Under the company letterhead was a short message.

Dear Rescuee,

     Congratulations! You have been selected as a candidate for the 2010-2011 Deserted Rescue Inc. (DRI) Assistance Program. DRI has been helping individuals and families who have been deserted since 2003 and we assure you that we provide the finest quality of assistance. We thank you for selecting us and we hope that we can meet all of your needs in an efficient and reliable manner.

     Before we can begin the process of rescuing you, please take a moment to fill out Form CS411: Client Survey (see attached) so that we can best assist your unique rescuing needs. The information you provide is confidential and will help us better prepare for your rescue. It is of the utmost importance that you fill out all parts of the form and copy it in triplicate in order to be considered for rescuing. In case a photocopier is not available, please hand write copies on the forms provided.

     All forms must be completed, signed and initialed in the designated areas in order to begin the rescuing process. Incomplete or irregular responses may delay your rescue time and could result in termination of the rescue contract.

    Again, thank you for choosing DRI to meet your rescuing needs.

Sincerely,

The Deserted Rescue Team

     No, it wasn’t what I expected. But it was something. It was contact from somewhere else in the world to me. Because it was directed to me, the “Rescuee” as they put it, it became a message that I read with glee. It was a chance at freedom, and sounded like a good one. They had been rescuing people since 2003, after all. All I had to do was fill out a little survey and I’d be on my way to freedom.

     The survey gave me something to do, something to occupy my mind. I hadn’t had something to do for three and half years and there it was, a little bit of responsibility. I even flirted with the idea of filling in the Client Survey in parts, just to have something to do for a few days. I could make it like a job; wake up in the morning, drink some coconut milk, eat a few fish for breakfast and then rush off to the other side of the island in order to get to work.

     “Boss says you need that customer report in by three o’clock.”

     “Oh don’t you worry. I’ll have it done.”

     “Good, and he wants it in triplicate you know…”

     “And initialed. Yeah, I’m on top of it. Just getting to it now. The boss can trust in me.”

     It would be like my old routine; back at work again. 

     But I didn’t have the patience to wait more days than I had to for a rescue. I wanted to get everything done as fast as possible so that I could send it out and get the rescue underway.

     I tipped the bottle upside down again to retrieve the DRI labeled pen that was included (how thoughtful of DRI) and turned past the letter to the Client Survey.

Form CS411

Last Name: Robinson    Middle Initial: C     First Name: Chris

Sex: Male

Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian

Birth Date: December 1^st, 1980

Address:

    

     I was confused by the “Address” part. Did they want my last address, or my current one? I didn’t think “20 x 20 Mound with Two Palms, Pacific Ocean”, was a legitimate address, but I also didn’t want them to look for me at my old address in Colorado. I needed them to come to the island. It seemed like an asinine question for a rescue company to ask anyway. Were there really people who needed their services who lived at an address? I would’ve left it blank, but the letter specifically stated, “All forms must be completed.” Would leaving it blank constitute the entire form being considered incomplete? I pondered a correct response.

Address: Currently Not Applicable.

     Good. Next question.

Nationality: United States

Amount of Time Stranded: 4 Years

     Though I wasn’t sure that it had been exactly four years I had a system that approximated about how many days I had been stuck on the island. I created a makeshift calendar out of thirty seashells that I placed in a hollowed out coconut. Everyday I would take out a shell until the coconut was empty. After every empty coconut I would scratch a mark into one of the palm trees and then refill the coconut and repeat the process. I had totaled forty six scratches on the palm and only had five shells left in the coconut by the time I received the DRI Client Survey. Five months had passed since I had thrown the original message into the sea.

     The next question asked me to

Please select which category best describes where you are stranded: A) Alpine/Mountainous Region; B) Island; C) Developing Country Ghetto; D) Tropical Rainforest/Jungle; E) Desert; F) At Sea; G) Other: _____________________.

     Easy. B.

What country are you in? Micronesia

In 300 characters or less, describe how you became stranded.

I was on a cruise ship and fell overboard. No one heard or saw me fall and the ship left me in the ocean. I held a plank of wood until I washed up onto an island.

Are there other people with you?  

No

Do you have any pets with you?

No

What were your estimated earnings last year, gross? More than $150,000, $90,000 – $150,000, $40,000 to $90,000, Less than $40,000.  

 Less than $40,000

When I was finished, I signed at the bottom, and action that felt foreign. I hadn’t signed anything in so long. My mind almost forgot how, but my muscles didn’t. Though it was a little different than how I would have signed in the past, it was pretty much the same signature, my old identity there on the paper.

Date:

    I had no idea of the exact date. I wrote: April 1^st, 2010, my best guess at the real date.

     After filling out the original, I filled out the next two copies. The work cramped my hand, but I didn’t mind a cramped hand if it meant freedom from my tropical prison. I made sure that everything was copied exactly as the original. The work wasn’t tedious because it was distracting. It was something to do, and again I reiterate that I was happy to have something to do.

     When I completed copying the last sheet of paper, I carefully let the ink dry and then collated the copies, rolled them up and inserted them back into the bottle. I corked the bottle as tight as I could, so as to ensure that my work would not be ruined by water. My emotions got the best of me again knowing that the message was the key to my salvation. Only a few tears managed their way to my beard however, before for the second time I tossed the bottle from my little mound into the sea.

PART III

    The dream, where the girl asks me if I’m Chris from TV and I humbly reply, “Why yes I am,” goes on like this:

    I put down my book and she looks at me with penetrating and distant eyes. “Did you really live on an island by yourself for four years?”

   I respond, “Yes.”

   She strokes my cheek with her pale hand and stares at me. She stays quiet, but her eyes, with the universe behind them, seem to tell me that everything’s okay. She’s there and everything will be okay, forever.

    I am in love during that dream. I feel real love more than any time in my past when I thought I was in love. Whoever that girl is, whether she exists or not, she’s the only woman I have ever really loved.

***

    With the existence of the bottle and the knowledge of its presence somewhere in the sea, my time on the island became more insane. Before, when the bottle didn’t exist, my day to day routine was a mechanical pattern to survive—go fishing, eat, sleep, drink rain water. In the beginning I tried to entertain myself. I would sing, draw pictures in the sand, play with the crabs. I even made a chess set with shells and played myself hour after hour for days. But it all became inane and hopeless. I eventually gave it all up and just stuck to the routine. I’d be entertained by my dreams. Everything else was survival.

    But knowing that the bottle was out there made my mind reel. Hope made me constantly search the horizon, looking for a glimpse of the bottle, needing to see it. If I saw anything that I thought might be it, I’d tremble with excitement. When I would mistake something for the bottle, my heart always felt like it was going to blow out of my chest. I’d start shouting for joy and running around in circles. But they were all delusions, delusions that became more and more vivid as time went on. A few times, though I’m still not sure if I was dreaming or hallucinating, my visions of the bottle became real to the point that I would pick it out of the water and read the messages inside. I remember reading one that said,

Here we are Chris!

Helicopters started flying overhead, and men started rappelling down ropes onto the island. They swept me up into the air and I watched my island grow smaller and smaller until we flew off and the island disappeared. I was very happy then.

     But I quickly realized that it was a hallucination. What I saw on the horizon wasn’t my bottle at all, just some kelp, or driftwood. The real bottle never came. Nor did the rescue helicopters and men to take me away.

     I keeled over with grief when that would happen. I’d feel like vomiting, and I’d wail into the sand. The depression that followed was abysmal, suffocating me. I would have preferred to die in those moments. Every instant of that level of grief scarred me in incurable ways. I knew I was losing my mind.

PART IV

     The bottle’s third appearance came in a relatively quick amount of time; about two months after tossing it, according to my shell calendar. When I saw the bottle from shore I tried not to get my hopes up, expecting it to be another illusion. The best method I found for calming myself was by yelling insults in order to suppress my hope for the bottle. I had to act like that because every vision of the bottle threatened to send me into mad convulsions if it turned out that what I saw wasn’t actually the bottle. To abate madness I would yell at myself, saying things like, “That’s not it! Stop tricking yourself!” or, “You’re such a fucking idiot! It’s not coming!” It was all in preparation for disappointment.

     When the real bottle came I tested my lucidity by punching myself hard. I thought that extreme pain would be able to pry me away from the delusion if it turned out that it wasn’t the bottle. I had started doing that before, along with insulting myself, and discovered that it was effective. If it wasn’t the real bottle, the punches helped clear my head, allowing me to see the illusion for what it actually was. That happened several times, and each time it seemed like I had to punch myself more and harder before my head became clear. When the real bottle did come, I gave myself around twenty hard punches to my arms, my stomach and head. After enough hits, I was convinced that the bottle floating in the ocean was real.

     The sight of the real bottle filled me with a happiness I had never felt before, the happiness of knowing I was a free man. The gamble of throwing a message in a bottle to the sea was about to pay off.

     I waded out into the small waves and retrieved the bottle. My heart leapt against my chest. When I picked it up, I saw that inside was a roll of paper that I knew was a message from DRI. It had to be a response from them. I cried as I started to pull out the roll of papers.

     At the same time of my elation I remember wondering again why they hadn’t just come themselves. The answer isn’t any clearer now. If they had received the paperwork, surely there must be a search party out looking for me. Perhaps they had been looking for awhile but I was too hard to find. I believed that the message would just be a formality then.

     I expected it to say something like,

Dear Chris,

     In case you have been wondering, there is a search party coming for you. You can rest assured that we are putting in all our efforts to find you. This letter is merely a precaution, in the case that you have not yet been rescued, letting you know to hold on a little longer. We are coming.

     The message had to say something like that. I was sure of it. No one would hear that another human being was stranded on an island and not send help immediately. It would be inhumane, heartless to do such a thing.

     I convinced myself that a search party would soon arrive. I even thought that it could be that very morning, perhaps even before I had finished reading the message. I thought that I was going home.

    When I slipped the rubber band off of the papers and unrolled them, I saw the company letterhead and the logo that looked just like my island, except for with one palm instead of two. The letter stated,

Dear Rescuee,

     Thank you for your submittal to the 2010-2011 Deserted Rescue Inc. (DRI) Assistance Program. Our staff is eagerly working to process the information in your Client Survey (CS411) in order to best assist you with your rescue needs.

     We would like to offer you our congratulations for making it to the second step of the 2010-2011 DRI Assistant Program application process! Of the thousands of applications we receive annually, only a select few make it to the second step of the process. Your needs are very important to us and we look forward to rescuing you as soon as possible.

     In order to finalize the rescue effort, we require a little more information from you. Please fill out the form SAQ236 (see attached), and return it to DRI headquarters as soon as possible.

    Like before, it is of the utmost importance that you fill out all parts of the form and copy it in triplicate in order to be considered for rescuing  (In case a photocopier is not available, please hand write copies on the forms provided). All forms must be signed and initialed in the designated areas in order to continue the rescuing process. Incomplete or irregular responses may delay your rescue time and could result in termination of the rescue contract.

    Again, thank you for choosing DRI to meet your rescuing needs.

Sincerely,

The Deserted Rescue Team

     It was not what I had hoped for. Not at all. It was illogical. What did all of those forms have to do with my worth as a person in need of rescuing? Was the company blind to my circumstance? Didn’t they realize when they read my first message that I was a living, breathing being, confined to an island and forced to endure a life of suffering and pain? Shouldn’t that be enough to have them send out the rescue ships and helicopters?

    I wept like a child. I didn’t understand. What was a clear process to me, the act of rescuing someone for no other reason than because they are in need, had once again been turned into paperwork required in triplicate and more time waiting.

    It took me awhile to get it together and stop crying. My body hurt from the loneliness. My eyes puffed up and mucus ran down my nose, into my beard. But I knew that I had to look at the forms and had to fill them out. They were my only chance. Though they returned me to my depression, they were still my only hope.

The first form was titled

Form SAQ236

1) What hobbies or activities do you enjoy in your free time?

    Free time! That’s the only kind of time I have. Did they mean now? Surely the didn’t mean now. It must be in my past life, when I could enjoy free time. Not when free time was torture.

     I intentionally wrote in the past tense, to subtly convey how stupid their question was:

I used to enjoy hiking, reading and going to movies.

     I couldn’t tell if what I had written was enough though. Would length matter? Would length help me get rescued faster? Or were the questions designed merely to find out information about what kind of a person I was?

    I decided to add a bit more, in case they were looking for that.

I also spent time with my family and volunteered at the animal shelter. Currently I have nothing to do, so I sleep, fish for food and collect rain water.

    That was enough.

2) Name one of your strengths and how it will help you contribute to society once you are rescued.

     The questions seemed to be designed to show my character, which I interpreted as meaning that I had to prove that I was worth being saved. So long as I wasn’t some murderer or psychopath, you’d figure that any real rescuer would only care that I was in a dire situation and needed help soon. Why should I have to prove that I would contribute something when I got back? My only plan for my return was to eat a lot and sleep in a bed. I never considered how I should possibly contribute to society. Regardless of my complaints, I tried my best to answer the question.

I’m patient.

   Patience was the most obvious virtue that I possessed given my last four years of suffering on the island.

I’ve been on an island for four years and have waited for rescue the whole time. I’d imagine that this would help me contribute to society because I will be able to take part in any job or task and work through it no matter how many challenges arise.

3) List one of your weaknesses. How do you work on this weakness?

I’m not very organized. I have amended that by greatly reducing the amount of stuff I have. Now disorganization is not a problem.

     I wrote the answers quickly, without much thought. It was just a step to the end, something that needed to get done in order to get closer to being rescued.

     When I completed the first sheet I copied my responses onto the accompanying papers that DRI had provided. I quickly checked for spelling and grammar errors. The time from when I began the process to the end was most likely no more than an hour. Before I was happy for the distraction, but this time, even though I only worked for an hour, I felt like it was time stolen from me—an extra hour of time that I would have to be on the island.

     I put the forms into the bottle, secured the cork, and threw it all back into the sea, watching the waves take it away. It would be another six months before I was contacted by DRI.

PART V

     I hated the bottle. Once it arrived I couldn’t end my suffering with suicide because there was always a chance of rescue. Be it one in a thousand or one in ten billion, it didn’t matter, there was a chance that rescue could happen.

     That chance was the only thing that brought me back to some sort of lucidity after my stoops into depression. I reminded myself that if it came through, if the bottle made it to DRI, I would have my old life back. I would be at Christmas dinners with my family, or air conditioned movie theaters. Four years would seem like a quick blink in the rest of the life that I chanced to live, if only that bottle got back to DRI and they came and set me free.

     It would be worth it then. It would be worth my mind breaking a thousand times over. It would be worth sobbing into the sand and shouting rants at the sky. It would be worth the hours of blank stares and mumbled diatribes to myself. I would risk insanity in order to have something normal in my future. I didn’t want to die like that—crazy and alone on an island. Even if they had to put me away as soon as I arrived back in civilization, it would be better than dying on the island.

     I had to make it. I had to make it until DRI came for me.

     When the bottle did return I didn’t realize it right away. I was sleeping, having that same dream about the same girl with the penetrating, dark eyes. We were in a grocery store. There were muffled sounds of price checks and calls for clean up on different aisles. There was no ceiling to the building. Instead, the shelves, filled with bright colored cans and boxes, towered upward endlessly, into a cloudy sky. The sun broke through the clouds every few minutes and shined on the shelves, illuminating name brands. The floor was a freshly mowed lawn, like you would see at a picnic in a city park. There were yellow dandelions that shot up intermittently, all the way down the aisle. The aisle of grass stretched on for what looked like forever, but curved downward, like we were on a hill.

     The girl and I were enjoying ourselves. It all seemed like a normal shopping trip. We glanced up at the endless shelves and pulled off everything we needed. I bought cereal in boxes, Twinkies, and pistachio ice-cream. She grabbed bags of chips, cheeses, fruits and vegetables. We filled the shopping cart, never talking to each other, but giggling at everything, like we were children with a secret.

     At one point in the dream I wanted to get something from a higher shelf, one of the ones near the cloudy sky. I stepped onto a platform that started to rise up by itself, leaving the girl and the shopping cart on the grassy floor below. I kept giggling as I went up and watched her below, getting smaller and smaller. When she disappeared I stopped giggling. I realized I was still moving up, higher and higher into the clouds. I entered a thick fog that was cold and damp, and I started to get scared. The platform shot up faster and faster, and the fog got colder and darker, and I shouted for some way to stop it, some way to get back down. But I couldn’t escape the platform. It was shooting up too fast. If I shifted, I might tumble off the platform and plummet down to the ground. The speed became too intense, and I kept shouting, screaming, with tears in my eyes.

     I awoke with a jolt. My forehead was sweaty and I had to catch my breath. It was night. The stars gleamed overhead, thick and gaudy. It took me a minute to hear the tapping of glass on the sand.

     The small waves were lifting the bottle onto the beach and setting it down again. When I picked it up I was gripped with despair. Was it real? Again I tested myself, hitting myself in the head and body. It caused great pain, but I had to be sure. When I was satisfied that I wasn’t dreaming, or hallucinating, I was still in grief. It was night, and wouldn’t be able to read anything until the sun started to rise.  And even if it was a new note, one question persisted: Why hadn’t they come for me yet?

     The darkness was torture. I was able to fish the papers out but when I held them close to my face, squinting to read whatever I could, it was hopeless. I couldn’t tell whether the bottle had a new message for me or if it was the one I had previously sent. If my message did make it to DRI and they had sent something back, I wanted to know what it was. Why weren’t they here yet? When would they come?

    Dawn came agonizingly slow. Occasionally when I would look up at the night sky I would see it getting lighter. Instead of black I would see it turning a light grey, with hints of transition to blue. When I realized that it was only my mind playing games with my eyes I would be sent into fits of anger, cursing and hitting myself again, only this time out of anger. I yearned for light so much that my brain was tricking me into seeing it.

     The torture went on like that for what seemed like an eternity. I could not sleep, nor silence the chattering in my head. Eventually though, at the pace of a slug, the sky began to show signs of a new morning.

     When it was light enough to see the papers, I discovered that three were exactly the same, forms again, which I ignored initially because the first was a letter on DRI letterhead. I quickly read.

Dear Rescuee,

     Before our rescue effort can be dispatched from our Central Offices, we require a little more information from you. Included with this letter you should have received three copies of Form PE168 (see attached), the Personal Essay. Your Personal Essay is of the utmost importance to move forward in the rescuing process. Please complete it in 4,000 words or less and copy and paste it in triplicate. Grammar and spelling are important, but since you may be in a situation where it is impossible to check your responses, mistakes will not be held against you. Also, because we are sensitive to the possible severity of your situation, we will allow you up to a year to return a response.

      If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

     Again, congratulations on making it to the second step of the 2010-2011 DRI Assistant Program application process. We look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

     Thank you for choosing DRI to meet your rescuing needs.

Sincerely,

The Deserted Rescue Team

     I couldn’t understand. Were they still coming to rescue me? Surely they didn’t need more proof that I was in need of their services! I was alone on an island in the middle of nowhere for fuck’s sake! I had answered every damn question they wanted, sent every form, copied them all! What more could they want? Why weren’t they coming for me?

     My breathing became agitated before my mind could realize it. I was heaving breaths, and my hands clenched into fists. Tears poured down my face in a different way than any time before. It was not depression like I had known it before, or sadness. It was rage, of an incredible strength that even now, when there is so little life left in me, I am surprised I had the energy react that way.

     I shouted at the letter and at the bottle that it came in. What is this?! What kind of a joke is this?! I don’t need essays, or paperwork! I need a goddamn helicopter to pluck me from the sky. A boat to come to shore! Why are you sending me this? What the fuck is this?

     I began hurling handfuls of sand in front of me, as if I was tossing them into the face of who ever sent me the letter. I screamed wildly, the realization that my rescue was not secured pulsing in my head.

     My fit lasted maybe five minutes, until I collapsed on the sand. Again I wept like a child.

     I picked up the papers and slowly began to read.

Form PE168

Please respond to the following prompt in 4,000 words or less.

What have you learned from being deserted? How will you change your life based on this experience?

     I’m a human being. I think and feel and suffer. Oh, how I suffer. How I have suffered for the last four years, suffering known only to the most miserable of men; every day a private torture, every moment a slow tick toward insanity or suicide, a slip into the blackest depression, my mind becoming that of an animal, like swine. Then I become plagued by a returning bottle from nowhere, from no one, which gives me enough hope to preserve my suffering much longer than I ought to. To hell with the bottle. To hell with the questionnaires and essays.

     I took up the paper, crumpled it into a small ball and stuffed it back into the bottle. I said nothing that time, no cursing, crying, or yelling. I remember breathing very hard, and feeling my heart pumping, as if it was in both my chest and my head at the same time. When I held the bottle I wanted to make it explode in my bare hands, or smash it against the tree. At least then I could have used the glass.

     I don’t know what happened then. I still don’t. When I went to smash the bottle, swinging it like a bat into the trunk of the tree, I just remember the dull vibration in my hand. It made a sound like a thud. It didn’t shatter like I thought, or even crack, like glass would. Instead it made that dull thud, like wood. I dropped it because of the pain in my hand.

     I don’t know what’s real. When I looked down at it, it even looked like wood, like another piece of driftwood that had washed up on shore. I had been certain that it was glass before. It had to have been glass before!  It must be a bottle! It has to be real.

     Confused, enraged, mad perhaps, I heaved the bottle, or piece of wood, or whatever it was back into the ocean, trying to get it as far from me as possible. It felt like I was distancing myself from an attacker, someone threatening to kill me. I wanted as much distance between me and the bottle as possible.

     When it hit the water, I ran behind one of the palms, hiding from it. I didn’t want to see it; didn’t want to know if it was coming back my way, or retreating into the ocean. Either option felt like it resulted in doom. I cowered at the base of the palm and there my tears started to pour. They came from my gut, pushed out by wails of agony that have never been heard in that part of the world. They were wild cries, cries of ultimate suffering, of the pain of losing everything.

     It seems like night came and went, but I can’t be sure of that. I remember darkness, I remember cold. But I also remember heat, like a glowing blacksmith’s rod being pushed into my temple while the wails of torture exploded out of me.

    It was awhile before I came out of it. My eyes felt weak. The sun hurt them. But I could see the pen still; weigh its value for my purpose. It was sharp enough for what I needed. The pain in my wrists would wear off fast enough.

     I don’t know how long I’ve been under this tree. But I feel better now. My head doesn’t hurt as much. I thought it would hurt. But it doesn’t. For the first time since arriving here, I feel okay.

     I can see them coming for me. DRI is coming for me. They got the message. They’re there, out in the ocean, coming for me. I hope they aren’t angry about the essay. I’ll write it when I get better. I’ll fill out any form they want. I’m just happy to go home.