The Same Sky

“The waves’ll kill you.”

Jules slashed into the dry log with his stone axe.

“If not the waves then thirst. Or hunger.”

Jules took a sliced piece of bark and tossed it to a basket on his left.

“Rocks. There’s rocks everywhere out at sea.” 

Jules repeated the process several times.

“And whatever else is down there, hiding in the water.” 

Jules' grip continued slipping as the sweat crawling down his arms cooled his warm muscles and stuck to his fingers. A day’s work underneath the palms had come to an end. Grabbing the basket, Jules trekked along the line separating white sand and green forest as the sky above him grew pink. 

The sound of the tide coming in filled the air as Jules, who carried the heavy load on his back at a steady pace, breathed in the ocean’s salt. Above him, drifting on a light breeze that was enough to give the barely clothed Jules goosebumps, was his parrot, Deimos, whose bright green feathers stood out in the heavens above. Together the pair crossed the shores before the sky could darken, arriving at their makeshift hut, nestled against a cliff, which also served as one of the house’s walls, on the curve of the island they called their home.

 Jules pried the door open with a small stone, as Deimos perched himself on a swing hanging from the huts’s ceiling. Their hut was simple, but built to last, with reinforced walls, ropes and logs nailed into holes riddled throughout the smooth cliff wall. Years of collapsing homes had given Jules a hardened craftsmanship that he used to keep a sturdy roof over his head for the last few years, although what made a year was impossible to tell on the island. 

To keep count of days passed, a much younger Jules would strike a line onto a large boulder lounging on the beach near his home. The lines were used to form a larger picture, usually something Jules had seen in the jungle. With a thousand days he drew the face of a ferocious monkey he had once hunted, with another three thousand he created a detailed portrait of Deimos, who had criticized the portrait for what he claimed was a far too large beak. Eventually the lines became impossible to read, and so time was lost once again. 

Jules dropped his basket and picked out a variety of nuts he kept in a box on a desk, as Deimos leaped onto his shoulder. 

“Hand them over!” the bird shouted, as he pecked at Jules ear.

“Calm down,” he replied, “Here, take a few.”

The parrot chewed in silence as Jules inspected the branches and pieces of wood he had collected during the day, all varying in size and strength. 

“I think I have enough Deimos,” he said as he lifted his forearm to allow the bird to climb on. “Combined with the wood outside, this’ll work. No doubt.”

Deimos’s large dark eyes stared at him, puddles of black. He replied: “The waves’ll kill you.” 

Jules’ brow furrowed and he lashed his arm out, forcing Deimos to fly back to his swing. 

“The sun’ll kill me!”, Jules bellowed back, “The sun’ll bake me into the sand! You’ll peck at my charred bones!” 

“The sun keeps you moving. Grows your food. Warms your nights”

“It’ll melt my legs! And if the sun don’t kill me something else will. This island is a coffin.”

“Your raft’ll be a coffin”

“Better to drown than melt.”

“Better to live than die,” Deimos said as he swooped in for more nuts. 

Jules remained silent and gathered a few spare chunks of wood before heading outside towards his fireplace on the beach, which rested right where the tides’ grasp could not reach. Deimos followed, gliding as if the air was honey. Preparing the fire, Jules pondered on the parrot’s words, echoes that grew stronger by the second. The island was all either of them knew: Deimos was an animal of its jungle, Jules was an outsider who had infiltrated it. How or when he got to the island, Jules no longer knew, for his mind belonged to its world. His earliest memory was killing Deimos’ father with a sharpened stone, when he was a starving teen whose jagged ribs poked out of his thin skin. As far as Jules knew, it was the first time had ever taken a life, and the experience became a core part of his life on the island, for it was then that the wild had swallowed him whole and spat him out a man. Since then, he had broken various bones, built different homes, hunted endless animals. He spoke the language of the trees and knew the dances of the monkeys that roamed their branches. He had fought wars against the parrots, killing all but Deimos, who had taken pity on the starving boy and betrayed his own kind. Everything that could be done on the island, Jules had done, and thrill was now seldom felt in his tropical prison.

A hushed flame arose from the firepit and Jules lowered himself onto the sand, his vision focused on the stars. 

“You think they have the same stars across the ocean? The same sky?” he said to Deimos as the bird made a soft landing near Jules’ head. 

“No stars to see when you’re dead,” Deimos replied. 

For months Jules had toyed with the idea of leaving and for months Deimos had done everything to frighten him out of trying. 

“Is it the water that scares you?”Jules turned to his parrot, his companion for so long. 

Deimos said nothing, just turned his head to the sky. 

“You can fly above the raft. You can help spot new land or maybe even other boats.”

“We belong to the green, not to the blue,” Deimos whispered. 

“We go as we please Deimos. We’re masters of ourselves” 

Ever since the parrot had shown Jules where the other birds hid many years prior, the two had been inseparable. Deimos spoke of whatever there was to speak of, gnawed at food for hours, and for this he became the outsider amongst his kind. When he flew, he flew alone. In Jules he had found a being that truly understood and together they had conquered the island, down to its fiery heart. It was their kingdom. A kingdom that would be left to grow back into wilderness.

“The nails and ropes are ready. They have been for a while, actually,” Jules said, “I can set up the raft within an hour. Whether you want it or not, I leave tomorrow.., And I truly hope you join me.”

Jules retreated back into silence, for there was nothing else to say, and enjoyed a night on the sand for a final time, falling asleep to the sound of the trees and the warmth of the dying flames. 

When morning came, Jules set to work without hesitation as he hammered away at wood and tightened it together with rope. His hands were chafed and his shoulders ached but he made quick work of the raft, which gave him time to fill an extra water skin by a pond in the heart of the jungle. He smiled when he saw Deimos following him along the path. The bird dashed amongst the bushes, his green feathers blending into the forest, collecting berries for their inevitable odyssey. At the pond, the two took in the sight of it one last time, for the pond was home to endless memories. Overwhelmed by a profound nostalgia, they were nearly driven to madness, Jules wanted to race back to shore and smash the raft into thousands of pieces with his bare hands. Deimos wanted to peck out Jules’ eyes, to blind him before he could set foot outside the jungle. In an instant, the madness was over, and the pond ceased to be anything but a pond, even to Deimos, whose wings beat stronger as the two made their way back to the beach, where their raft waited. There was nothing left to prepare: they had food and water to last them a couple of weeks, broad sticks that served as oars, and a stable raft with an extra piece of firm wood sticking out on which Deimos could rest. 

As Jules began to push their raft against the shallow waves, Deimos looked back on the years they were abandoning.

“And so it ends,” the parrot said as they finally broke past the force of the shore. Despite aching muscles, the curves of the ocean fueled Jules’ body, and the creaking of his bones ceased, replaced by his thunderous heart beat. Jules, now kneeling on the raft, began to row, while Deimos glided above him. The island behind them grew smaller and smaller, until it became a blur on the horizon, obscured by the occasional wave. The occasional wave turned into a steady onslaught of water beating against the raft, soaking Jules, who never once stopped rowing, and the raft. Deimos flew done from the clear blue sky and onto his small resting place, shouting words of encouragement that were drowned out by the sea. Jules fought back against the aggressive ocean, but the water now struck from all around them, as if the ocean was attempting to swallow them whole. As the raft rocked in and out of the waves, Deimos, covered in the ocean’s heart, beat his wings in an attempt to soar above the walls of water closing in on them.  Jules, blinded by the salt melting his face, cried out for Deimos, his arms burning so hot the oars he held burst into flames. Only then, in his fiery chariot storming across the relentless ocean, did Jules see that the sky above him was the same sky he would marvel at for hours back on the island. By then it was too late. Deimos was lost in the waves.