Shipwrecked Heart
The storm had. abated but the sea rolled on, White caps being whipped away by the prevailing wind. I lay across the decking of the small boat, and was being violently sea sick. There was no relief from the nausea and the diarrhoea that I was now suffering. To say that I was in a mess was the understatement of the year, given the choice I would have chosen death. The motion was a violent up and down, often sideways as the boat skewed and slid down the side of a Wave.
On the occasions that I could look up and see what was happening, it was as if a grey wall towered above us and was about to collapse on us, me and the boat, and then, as if in a high powered lift, we shot up the side and toppled over the top. That’s the strange thing about waves they just move across the sea, much like shaking a sheet. This in turn simply tosses whatever is on it up and down. And didn’t I know it!
Days passed, how many I did not know or care about. I was now just a carcass, a body without life, a thing in delirium, lifeless but now in the land of dreams. I recall seeing ice cream, a mess of it like in a vat, I craved for it but as I reached out it turned into a Crab like amoeba and slid out of reach. There was water, a clear pool of it, I lay down and scooped it up but my tongue got in the way and wouldn’t let it down my throat, like a plug in a bath.
I heard a roaring in my ears, coming round I realised it was from the sea. It became a crashing sound and as we topped a wave I saw the sea churning and throwing huge spray high in the air, the sea turning from green to white. I thought I was at some kind of funfair and I was on one of those water rides. Suddenly the sea gave way beneath us, it was if there was a hole and we were going to be sucked down to the depths. We toppled down into it and I passed out as we swung round and round.
*
The surf spun away from the coral reef as the sea crashed over it. She stood on the shore watching the green waves advancing to the reef, rolling cliffs of water sweeping into the bay, their out lands causing the water to swirl into a cauldron, and there she saw the wreck of the boat, held within its swirling grasp. She knew that once there was no release from its grasp. The boat would surely be smashed.
She turned to climb back up the headland when she saw what she thought was a limp arm swing out from wreck. Holding her hands up to her eyes she peered down and thankfully for me decided it was a human arm. She stood undecided, what to do, she just sat and waited! I could have died!
A day went by, and still she waited, and on the evening of the second day she swam out to the reef waded along on the surf side and waited for the boat to swing round, now in much slower circles, as it went by she swung me off like luggage on an airport carousal. I should have been dead by now, but I wasn’t. I came too in the arms of a dusky maid
I lay on the beach looking up at the stars, soft arms held me close to some very
sweet bosoms, my cheek rested on their softness comforted me and like a baby I went to sleep. When next time I awoke I was on some kind of litter, a rough shell containing some kind of milk was being offered to my lips. I drank a little, those dark orbs now close to my chest. And so again later the same procedure, a drink I now recognised as coconut milk, for a moment there I thought it may be the human kind!
And so the days went by; a little milk, a little coconut. I was now beginning to welcome those rounded breasts. I was more alert for them, waiting for them to brush against my skin, for what became the signal, for me to eat and drink. My skin was badly chapped, and the skin was beginning to peel off. My tongue was not as swollen as it was, and drinking and eating became easier. I was beginning to take more notice, and as I felt some kind of balm being rubbed on my limbs, I looked down and got the sight of an sweet but comely bum close to my face; it was at that moment I started to fall in love; especialy when I recognised we were as naket as the day we were born!
The days passed. She was without embarrassment in her nudity. She moved with fluid grace, especially in looping fish with her hand from the small lagoon, separated from the roaring surf by the coral reef. At night she faded into the dusk and became a shadow of delight in the tropical moonlight, and so could appear as if by magic, and when I reached out to her she was gone, as if into empty air.
And could she swim, a transformation into a dolphin, no, a mermaid! And what a wonderful sight to watch. It was a revelation, a sleek beauty in her natural habitat. The sea slid off her body as if it was lightly oiled, the hair streamed out behind her, twisting round her body like caressing fronds. As she rolled over in the water her petite breasts rose above the water with a supple firmness: I could watch them for hours!
Powerful strokes brought her to the rock edge, and, without any seeming effort, swept up out of the Water stood on the rocks, gleaming like a young seal. In my minds eye, an apparition, smooth muscular flesh, a sensual litheness. She turned as if sensing that I was looking at her, and a great smilespread across her face showing teeth as white as pearls, and dark eyes sparkled, and, running her hands down her body in a sensual manner she actually lifted her breast up as if in invitation, and then turning dived back into the sea and disappeared below the
waves.
I must have slept for some time, and I must have dreamed. Instead of the beach where I had lain so long I was on the grass of a village green, I could smell it as if it had just been cut. I heard the crack of leather on willow; I was at a cricket match. The sky above was an English sky, the sun warmed and comforted, soft white clouds drifted along, billowing up like sails on a boat. There was a hum of idle Chatter, ’Well done’, interspersed with the tinkle of cup on saucer;
Oh for an English cup of tea ! I watched the slow run up of the bowler, the ball arched through the air as the batsman swung into it with idle grace, and it came to rest beside me. I tried to rise to throw the ball back but found I was somehow bound to the floor. 'Sorry old chap,' said a pair of white boots. ’Somebody give this old boy a hand.’ I saw a silk stocking, and looking up a brown girl was on her haunches down in front of me, I noticed with some surprise that she was not wearing any underwear, and mesmen’sed by the sight a voice said, ”Would you Like a Cherry ?’
I awoke, or was I awake? There in front of me was coffee coloured legs spread asunder and it was certainly not a cherry I saw ! I looked along the sweep of her inner leg, that were now held invitingly wide, into the fork of her womanhood, and what stared back was not a Cherry but a pearl, and what a pearl. A pearl, wait a minute, I sat up straight, funny place for a pearl !
She smiled at me, and leaned forward, her honied breasts coming to rest against my chest, as if to kiss me. She smelled somehow of the sea, with musk overtones, suddenly her form took on an erotic nature, as if she was a nymphet overwhelmed by passion. Her tongue came out between wide lips and she pressed into my mouth, at the same time she lifted my hand and pressed it between her legs. I felt a surge of passion thrusting up between her breasts. Her tongue darted into my mouth, and our lips touched, and I was undone. And so I took the offered pearl, with honeyed delight!
Good food, exercise, clean air, and the ministrations of a good woman, can work wonders on a man! And so here I was totally recovered, I’d filled out, I actually had muscles. I could climb a tree, I could shake down coconuts, collect bananas like a regular monkey, and swim like a fish in the sea. We swam together, she with grace and speed, as if it was her natural habitat, and me something like a fiddler by her side. She loved to play games. She would tease me. She would run and turn, beckoning me to her with a sexual
gesture, and then run into the forest, or dive into the roaring surf Where I was to frightened to follow. She laughed and sang, or more truthfully hummed, as she prepared food, it was all native to the island, which at first seemed so strange but now I had become used to it, and we ate together in mutual harmony. We had no need to talk, we communicated in sweet sounds and soft caresses , and so without realising it I was becoming as her, a native of the islands!
From time to time I pondered my fate. It was one that many would die for. An idyllic island, food to hand, blue skies, golden sands, warm sea, oh, and by now a bag full of pearls! What more could a man ask for, and yet, and yet there was the call of home. I was thankful to be brought back from the dead and I enjoyed the soporific inducement of the tropical climes.
Once or twice I thought I might just be living a dream, perhaps I was still in a coma, or maybe dead and this was heaven. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed by; one year, five years, maybe a lifetime fitted in to so short a period, And soon, it seemed to me, I must leave - just a minute what was I thinking, this was paradise, and then there was She!
I’d fallen in love with She, not only that, but the powerful erotic attraction She exerted over me. Somehow She had become her name. It was just in my mind at first; where was She, what was She doing, will She bring a pearl of love ? And where did She come from, was She the only one on this island, surely She must belong to some kind of native tribe?
I could not ask her, our sign language had developed to some sophistication, its amazing what you can do with hands and expressions, but when I mimicked coming here with a puzzled expression She simply shook her head and pointed to the sea beyond the reef. I never understood whether She meant beyond the sea, or from it. And so I began to long for change — and, bye God, I got it, in spades.
One day, out of idleness more than anything else, I thought I might build a shelter, you know palm leaves for a roof on a simple lean—to. I started to collect canes that had been washed up on the beach. I was quite surprised at their variety, some were as much as twelve feet long and as thick as my wrist. She watched me with some puzzlement as I tried to break them to size. She laughed at my puny efforts, and realising what I was trying to do picked them up and broke them off in her powerful hands.
She shinned up the palm trees and broke off the fronds, She knew how to strip out the middle bit to make ties, She brought heavy rocks from the sea shore to make a surrounding base, She found a log that had hardened in the water and used it as a hammer to drive in the canes. With time on our hands as you might say, the shelter started to develop into a hut, we had become a regular construction company! I might have suspected something.
She became all smiles, and swung into the work, for that was what it had now become, with gusto, and added on what seemed to be an extra part, a partition to be more exact. In the midst of this activity, of which I was frankly beginning to tire, the presentation of pearls became more frequent! Then one night She slept behind the partition, I was not too upset by this since I felt that I was having to act the stallion of late, but when it went on for some time I began to get anxious.
You see up until now I had been her patient, so She did things for me, and so I was somehow in command, She was a partner, without thinking I automatically assumed me, then her, now it was her then me, no more did she snuggle up to me in the night, her soft breasts against my chest, no more that musty smell that I had become used to, no more caressing under the tropical moon; I felt quite bereft - then one day she dived into the sea and disappeared!
I thought nothing of it at first, She had been away for some time before, always coming back with some new exotic fruit, laughing and jigging about as if performing some
ancient dance. But now it had stretched in to days, and then it seemed like weeks. I had to do things for myself, catching fish was not as easy as it looked, and how had she guttedthem? I realised that she had left them out to dry, and almost cook in the sun so that it became palatable, certainly the raw fish that I ended up with could not be eaten!
Time without a watch or a calendar is very difficult to judge, and in tropical dimes there is very little change in the sun's position to judge seasons, and so how much time went by I did not know, and I began to think the worst, she had left me, or even worse she was drowned at sea, then one morning my life changed for ever!
There She was, jigging in the familiar manner across the sands, with an even wider smile across her face, and holding a small child by its hand. As she got closer She became quite coy, she hesitated as if uncertain as to my reaction might be ! I was taken aback, as you might expect, I then realised what all the activity was about she thought I was building a home. But my home was across the sea !
Now I was torn between caring for this little family that had become mine, and that someday I would leave. Was I being foolish, they had managed without before I came and they would again when I was gone ? And so my foolish heart was battered by emotions that are not balanced in a ledger to know what is right or wrong. Where would it end; well matters were decided for me .
Life went on in its idyllic manner. I wondered from time to time Where She and the child came from, there must be a family somewhere, but I had not seen anything on the Island until one day I noticed a mark in the sand that could have only been made by the prow of some kind of boat.
It was early morning and the tide was right out, so someone had come ashore, and then floating off with the tide the marks would be erased, which was why I had never seen them before. This made me even more curious — had I been drawn onto the Island by a sirens call — no, it had been chance, of that I was sure, but was I now being seduced, and in a way trapped ? Was it a honey trap. As it turned out I will never know, because there one day was a real boat!
*
I think of that Island and that dusky form as I sit now in my chair in a house I call home, and ponder the life I had there. There were heart felt tears when I left — I could not creep away in the night, they meant more to me than that, but what possible reason or excuse could I give. I console myself that life goes on, and time mends a broken heart, but part of mine will always be there, a shipwrecked soul on the Island of love.