LOST ON AN ISLAND



Days have passed.  I was stuck on this deserted Island and no one knew of my existence.  I was becoming desperate and my mind was going insane.

             I searched long and far and I have not found any food, or drinking water on this Island; who wrote Robinson Crusoe clearly had a vivid imagination! 

             My throat was so tight and dry that I could feel myself nearly choking.  And my stomach was so tight that it actually ached.  My body was tired – tired of searching for food and tired from sleepless nights.  And my mind was going insane, from hallucinating, from terror of the night, and from knowing that I was slowly dying an inhuman death, all alone on this uninhabited land.  I decided to challenge death and end my misery before my time came. 

            I made a solid rope out of long bamboo shoots, which I cut into long thin strips and twisted them all together to make a rope.  This would hold my weight I thought.   I climbed up high on to a tree and tied the rope tightly on to a thick outstretched branch.  Then I tied the other end of the rope to my neck.  All I had to do was jump and I would be free of this agony.  I looked down to assure myself that I was high enough, then I closed my eyes, feeling my heart pumping vigorously; took a deep breath and without hesitating I leaped off the tree.  All I heard was a snap then total darkness.

          I woke up startled, grasping for air, instinctively my hand flew up to my neck.  It was all a bad dream I assured myself.  I was at home, in my own bed….just a bad dream, I told myself again.  I turned to switch on the bed side lamp, while brushing off with my hand, beads of sweat that were on my forehead.  It was then that my eyes rested on a return flight ticket to the Caribbean.  That following morning I was due to fly off to a Caribbean Island.  I had been waiting all my life for this dream holiday ………now I was not so sure anymore!!

         

Written by Jacqueline Sammut
(fiction story)