I…
I…
The boy washes onto the shore.
Ish…
Ish…
Ishmael…
wake up, wake up
Where am i.
You are on the island you always dreamed of, Austin.
It’s just so empty.
Don’t worry. I will be traveling with you.
Who are you?
The Narrator. The man you’ve always dreamed of
Go talk to him, Austin
Who?
That boy over there. He seems lonely.
“Hi! I’m ”
I can’t hear anything.
“Oh, sorry. I’m Suresh. I’m not used to speaking to anybody.”
“Why not? Doesn’t anyone live here? I mean, besides you?”
“They died in the tsunami.”
“Wow! I’m sorry! How long ago did that happen?”
“Not that long ago. It’s OK. It’s given me a lot of freedom. I wanted to get out of here anyway!”
“But isn’t this Paradise?”
“Huh? Paradise? What’s that?”
“You know, that place I circled on my map.”
“Can I see that?”
Oh, ha ha ha!
The fisher boy laughed.
“That’s not Paradise. This is!”
“But that’s where I just showed you.”
The fisher boy had pointed to the exact same spot on the map.
“That’s impossible. I don’t think you need that narrator on your shoulder to tell you (whoops! I blew my cover) that if that was Paradise, then it just wouldn’t exist. Look exactly where I pointed. I mean look at this!”
“It’s the island.”
“Yep. That’s where I’m headed. :)”
“But we’re on it.”
“That can’t be. Think about it, stupidhead. (Hey!) If we were truly in Paradise, how could the sea have taken my mother and father away from me?”
That was a good point.
“Now, if you wouldn’t mind stopping there lallygagging, I could really use some help. Will you help me build a raft?”
I was afraid of that.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. We’ve got two hands. Well, actually four. Do you get it? I said ‘all hands on deck’ because there have never been this many hands before
“but you didn’t say that”
“well, since at least I met King Ashoka in the jungle. He brought lots of help to my village. We had so many hands on deck, pulling in the big fishing nets, that we never ran out of singing fish”
“you had singing fish?”
“Why? Don’t you?”
The boy looked astonished.
“We’ve had them ever since I can remember. Since the dawn of time
That was a very long time.
for as long as I can remember
which wasn’t very long
Hey! Can you get rid of your wise old narrator!?
Sorry.
That’s better. 🙂 Now as I was saying
Blurp.
Two can play at that game!
The two of them wrestled into the sea. Now, as I was saying, I pulled out my journal and started writing just what happened the rest of those days. Me (I) and the fisherboy worked on building the raft, rolling the logs together, stuffing it with leaves, stringing it together (with string), and, a week after they’d started, it was finished, and the boy was sorry.
“I’m sad to see you go.”
“I’m sorry too, you know. I really liked hanging out with you!”
“Good luck finding Paradise!”
“You too!”
I turned away.
“Hey! Try and find King Ashoka!” He heard the fisherboy shout. “He’ll take good care of you.”
Austin Diamond 