Sir Wittenhouse Island

Sir Wittenhouse lifts his head to find that he is nearly upon the beach of some strange remote island in the middle of the ocean, having been adrift on an inflatable yellow raft after the sinking of his yacht:

"Well I'll be damned…" he says.

And this is not a normal, everyday "Well I'll be damned." This is the most astonished, parched, hopeful, sun-burnt, exhausted, exclamatory "Well I'll be damned" the world has ever seen.

He jumps from the raft into the shallow surf and drags it beside him up onto the beach. It looks like a relatively small island. One could walk all the way around it in, say, an hour, tops. There's a thick forest of a few species of tree (mostly palms) from the middle of the island outward. A ring of white-sand beach wraps around the whole of the island. Sir Wittenhouse doesn't feel like there's anyone else here. And you can tell he's hoping there to be fresh water around someplace. He keeps a keen nose to the wind, sniffing like a coke-whore for the scent of fresh water – even if he does know that's still a difficult way to locate it. But he figures – what the hell – every little bit helps.

Sir Wittenhouse is still in shock over what happened on his yacht. The way he figures it now, after the fact, he thinks his employees and crew were members of a suicide cult. The last time he saw his personal butler alive was on the yacht right before the sinking. His butler, all smiles, offered him a cup of juice with the promise of eternal life.

"Well, that sounds just awful," Sir Wittenhouse responded.

The butler then shrugged and walked on down the hall toward the disco lounge area of the yacht. Twenty minutes or so went by before Sir Wittenhouse discovered all of his employees and crew lying dead all around the floor of the disco lounge. Music blared from the stereo and the disco lights were lit up, and they twinkled around the room, like some coke-whore pixie swinging on a wire. Half-consumed cups of poison-juice were dropped and spilled all around the room. Sir Wittenhouse also found a note taped to his butler: written in crude blue crayon, it said:

"We fly now!

We go to be with The One Who Switches The Clouds!

Praise be with the Cumulonimbus Crew!

BOOF!"

The next thing Sir Wittenhouse knew, there was an explosion toward the front of the yacht that rocked everything, knocking him off his feet. After that, the massive boat started going down faster than a coke-whore. Sir Wittenhouse shudders now at the thought of just how insanely fast it went down… Luckily the stocked-up inflatable yellow raft – complete with food, first aid, water, etc. – was stowed away in the disco lounge. He grabbed it and shimmied up to the top deck of the yacht. Then, on the last leg of the doomed yacht, Sir Wittenhouse yanked the cord and inflated the raft just in time.

Throughout his life, Sir Wittenhouse has tried to maintain a positive mindset, shun negative thoughts of all kinds, keep to the path that felt warm and toasty deep down inside his testicles. And this truly has worked out in his favor for much of his life. After all he has been knighted and, up until not long ago, he had an enormous yacht; he couldn't have been doing too badly.

So, all in all, this situation could have been much worse, and Sir Wittenhouse knows it. Yes, his beloved yacht is gone, his devoted employees and crew are gone… But that famous Sir Wittenhouse positivity is still hanging there in the background, somewhere deep in the back of his mind, beneath the shock and surprise.

Luckily Sir Wittenhouse came upon the island sometime in the morning, so he has the rest of the day to explore and set up some kind of shelter. There's also the task of looking for fresh water to think about. Too bad the coffee maker went down with the yacht… Along with the espresso machine…

"At least I'm in the tropics," Sir Wittenhouse says to the wind. "This would be absolutely terrible if it was cold." He looks around, feeling the warm, salty breeze over his body. "I'll bet there's fresh water in that patch of trees. There's just got to be…"

Sir Wittenhouse leaves the raft and remaining supplies up on the dry sand and walks into the small forest. The only other life on the island seems to be a few birds. Their chirps and rustling greet Sir Wittenhouse as he wanders through the maze of trees.

Now there's the sound of water. He can't see it yet, but he can hear it…

"Sounds just like running water…"

Lo and behold, it's a small spring – a small one, yes, but still, it is in fact a spring. Sir Wittenhouse finds himself seemingly near the center of the island, surrounded by the covered shade of many trees, next to a small spring of trickling water; and beside that, a suitable cave cut out of the large rocks that nestle said spring.

"What luck!" he shouts at a flapping bird. "I couldn't have built a better situation if I was allowed to!"

The cave seems to be a perfect shelter. The inside is about the size of a standard hotel room. It is a bit drippy, due to the natural spring, but only in certain spots: perfect for placing the water jugs under. Sir Wittenhouse could build a fire on the floor close to the entrance of the cave. He can grab the emergency sheets from the raft and build a fine bed. He's even got his backpack to use as a pillow, just like on the raft at sea: it worked just fine, indeed… Like a coke-whore.

And you know what, Sir Wittenhouse does those things right away. He runs back to the raft, ties it up to a tree, grabs the supplies from it and heads back to his newly-found temporary home away from home. He is filled with actual excitement, which is strange, considering the situation, but his situation does seem to be the best it could possibly be.

It's that positive mindset – it's just got to be. It's gotten him further than a coke-whore gets at a truck stop. It's gotten him through some tough situations, no doubt about that, and being stranded on a tropical island alone definitely ranks as a tough situation – especially for Sir Wittenhouse, who was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. Indeed, he's always been a subject to the finer things in life; has always had more money than he knew what to do with; has always been waited on for every little thing he ever wanted. But he is also adaptable, and adaptability goes a long way.

Right now it's around noon. The sun directly overhead is searingly hot, so Sir Wittenhouse keeps mostly to the cave or close to it, next to the spring. He nibbles on an emergency granola bar from the raft and looks around the small forest he finds himself in. And –

– "YES! BANANAS! There they are, bunches of them in the trees!" he shouts at a rock.

Sir Wittenhouse finds himself witness to another miracle, and all he has to do is climb a few trees to get at it.

"Today is my day, might I say… " he says to his jug.

Sir Wittenhouse spends the better part of the afternoon harvesting bananas. At first he tries throwing rocks at the banana bunches, but realizes very quickly that he will, indeed, have to climb the trees. And he does exactly that… He climbs the trees with such dexterity, like that of a rebellious sloth. Once he reaches the banana bunches, he pries them from the rest of the tree – which is quite a feat in itself – and tosses them down to the island floor, where they are mildly cushioned by the sand. The few on the bunch where it hit the ground are smashed, but the majority left are able to be eaten.

"If pah-pah could see me now," Sir Wittenhouse says to a large ant walking by, "I would hope he'd be proud of me… Maybe even give me a firm handshake and say, 'Alright, lad… Alright…'"

Sir Wittenhouse stows the few large bunches of bananas inside his new cave. It's getting to be evening now, and he's basically all settled in. He does still have to get some of the emergency food from the raft, but his bed is all set up, he's got his bananas, some jugs of water filling up – drip by drip. Sir Wittenhouse is sitting pretty solid right about now… Sandy and sunburned, yes, but pretty solid. The shock of the yacht sinking also seems to be disappearing. Of all things, Sir Wittenhouse almost feels like he's on vacation. That could very well be delusion from sun poisoning, but – what the hell – at least it's a good feeling right now.

The sun starts going down, and Sir Wittenhouse sits open-legged in the entrance of the cave, like a coke-whore, eating a banana. He can't believe how the day turned out to be – not after drifting for days and days at sea after the sinking of his beloved yacht and loss of his loyal crew – him sitting in a perfect little cave carved from the purity of a cool fresh spring of delicious water, munching a delicious banana, and watching two birds bone in the twilight.

"Tomorrow will be great, too – it just has to be…" he says to a short palm.

Sir Wittenhouse looks up at the stars, blinking along with them.