The Lonely Island

Isolation is not safety, it is death.

If no one knows you’re alive, you aren’t.

~Neil Hilborn

The ocean. 

Its dark murky waves tossed and slashed like the loneliness within her. 

Would this feeling disappear with the storm? Or would it linger even when the sun showed its face again?  

Waves shot up the cliff side soaking her billowing dress. Her dark hair whipped and twirled with the rain and wind.

   ~~~

Hardly without any effort the wind shoved her door open, slamming it into the opposite wall with a shuddering bang that shook the small cottage. 

She was drenched to the bone, her cotton dress clung like a second skin. 

She needed to stop going out in the pouring rain like that; she couldn’t be getting a cold when there was no one on this island to care for her.

Her icy hands shook as they grabbed the door and heaved it closed. 

Even if she took ill she knew she would not stop going to the cliff edge. She loved the screaming wind, the howl of the waves, and the tears that fell from the sky trailing down with her own. 

She wrung out her hair and peeled off her dripping frock, slipping a nightgown over her freezing body.

Fire light flickered against the walls, rain drops freckled the glass. 

She sighed, ducking under the dry herbs that hung from the ceiling. 

This was her favorite part of the day cozying up by a candle to read one of the dusty old novels that lined her shelves. 

She cracked open a book to the poppy flower nestled between the yellow pages, and began to read. 

The story told of a married couple who lived in a seaside village and of all the funny misfortunes that occurred in their town. 

Was there really a world beyond this one, where people lived together? Ate together? Laughed together? There had to be, for there were entire books written about it.

Every inch of her heart longed for the life of the couple by the sea. 

Oh if only she could go to balls wearing beautiful gowns! If only she had friends to sip tea with, a husband to make her laugh, to kiss her goodnight. She wouldn’t wish for anything more.

Her mouth quivered into a smile as she stared down into the pages, tears blurring the words together. 

But wishes were just wishes, nothing more.

She blew out her candle, and settled into her makeshift bed, hoping her dreams would take her far away from this island where she was alone and forgotten.

~~~

She began to write. It wasn’t much at first, but the more she did it the more addicted she became. The smooth glide of ink that trailed across paper, the painful twinge in her fingers after she had written too much, gave her a new sense of freedom.

She wrote about the birds on the island, along with the different types of flowers that scattered the earth. She gave lengthy accounts of her garden, and wondered what the real world was like.

Would anyone ever know if she existed, or would she die, loneliness carved upon her heart until her very last breath?  

If she fell from the cliff edge, no one would know, it would be as though she never existed.

But despite thinking all this she knew she couldn’t spend the rest of her days trailing her fingers down pages wishing the words would come to life. 

She couldn’t keep living on this island, when she knew there was someone out there whom she could possibly love and they could possibly love her in return.

One night she picked up another book. Most of the pages had fallen out from the amount of times they had been flipped through, but it was still one of her favorites. 

The story was about a crab whose family did not love him because two of his legs were missing. One day a strong current came along, and the crab floated away. The crab, not being able to swim properly, found a bottle with a message inside and held onto it. A boy found the bottle with the crab, and took him to his house and they lived happily together.

While she was reading an idea struck her like lightning. 

Of course! How had she not thought of it before?

The next morning she walked down to the beach, an old wine bottle in hand, having found it in the old cellar only a day before.

With a loud rip she tore all the pages she had filled with scribbled ink. 

Uncorking the bottle she slipped the roll of paper inside, and closed it back up.

This was it. 

She slowly waded into the water.

The tide was high, a perfect day. But she was still hesitant.

The thought of no one ever seeing the bottle made her stomach turn in on itself.

Someone could very well see it, but it didn’t mean they would give up their lives to find some “nobody” who lived on an island no one knew about.

Waves lapped at her knees.

Still, if there was at least a fragment of a chance that somebody would see her writing, then shouldn’t that be enough? 

She released the bottle. 

When she died she knew the world would still go on, rain would still fall, the cold would still bite, flowers would still bloom. All of that was fine with her, but she didn’t want to be forgotten, in some way she hoped that the world would still go on with at least some trace of her left behind.  

She stood there for some time, watching the bottle bob up and down in drifting waves, towards the sun on the horizon.

~~~

On another shore, far away, a young man took his boat out to sea, praying he would catch something for his starving mother and sisters. He was weary to the bone, having worked till sunset the day before. He had wanted more for his family than this. But alas, wanting is just wanting, it never comes to anything.

He sighed, heaving the net back onto the boat.

And as he had predicted–nothing.

He was about to throw it back in, when something caught his eye. 

Beneath the seaweed and grime was what looked like a glass bottle. He couldn’t be sure.

Stepping over the net he bent down and sure enough, there was a bottle. He studied it under the awakening sun. 

Was there something inside? 

He uncorked the bottle, and a neatly tied roll of paper fell out. 

Untying the flimsy yarn he began to read.