An Ocean View

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

            My island is made of different sets of ripples.
            The water ripples out to reach the island, closer and closer until it touches base and disappears only to repeat a hundred times again. Sand is like frozen ripples of history, every foot print ebbs out, and then freezes until new work of art can take its place. The sky mimics the water. But the sky is more patient. The sky slowly gives way to ripples, morphing into a new creation, and then starts the whole process over again.
            It has always amazed me, the relationship between the sky and the ocean. Both such a brilliant blue and both permanently part of this world. I can relate in ways. Azura, my name, means sky-blue.  But I'm not permanently part of the world. I'm gone right now, separated from civilization. And I'll be gone soon enough, but this time, permanently.
            I get up and begin to make my way to the creek. Thankfully my island has freshwater, or I wouldn't still be alive. Water was my drink when I was a little girl. I wouldn't drink milk by itself, I refused. Juice was good enough too, but I’d always take water over anything else.  And now that I have a whole river to myself, I couldn't be happier.  
            The island also has an abundant supply of food. Fish regularly swim into my self-made traps, and there are always coconuts, mangoes, and berries. Fire was difficult for me in the beginning, but now it's daily life.    
            I fill up my old canteen reminding myself how much I want a new one.  I found this one buried in the sand awhile back, so I've used it ever since. This, an old fisher's net, and some aging blankets, are the only objects I have from the other world.
            My house - or shelter - is a large rectangle like structure covered with palm trees and supported with fallen logs. There’s nothing fancy about it.
            The basket I have to keep everything in is woven with bark strips. I have two baskets, one for supplies, and one for when I pick fruit. I have sharpened sticks for hunting and the net I have for catching fish. But a girl can get tired from fruit and fish. And a girl can get tired from being alone. 
            I turn around to face my neighboring island. I have two island neighbors, one to the east and one to the west. The one to the west I've nickname Seul since it has a single tree covered mountain protruding from its center. The East Island is small with nothing exciting. I've never been to either in all the time I've been living here. 
            My island is my safe place. I want to find home, but I can never do it. I can never be alone in the ocean. It’s more depressing than here. Here at least here I have food, water, and solid ground. 
            Some of the sand is still wet from last night’s storm, and there’s more driftwood on the shore too. The dark clouds are just backing away, leaving me drenched in humidity. I splash water on my face from the stream and drink the water enough to make my stomach hurt. I consider going in, but that heart tightening panic always tells me otherwise. I go in to take a bath once a week, I have to. But I don’t like it. I end up closing my eyes so tight I get purple splotches in my vision. I can't stay in for very long either. 
            I laugh at myself. Even after being here since I was twelve I still haven't been able to get over water. It's not something you can get over exactly, the trauma I've been through... 
I trudge over to my shelter. I refuse to call it my house after I've known a different one. One is purely survival, the other is comfort. My shelter is no way comfortable. Sure it has a "bed" per se, but not a real bed. This one is strewn together with logs and the blankets layer it for some comfort. A real bed has a mattress and a fleece blanket covering the top. 
            There aren’t any closets or dressers either.  Just a corner for my supplies and then a small hollowed out log for collecting fruit. No other clothes then what I wore when I first boarded that plane. And that’s my life in a continuous circle. A ripple you could say.
            I hear distant thunder and look up. Dark clouds prowl ominously from a distance. Sudden storms are amazingly common, and although most of them are just wind and rain, some are very strong, heart racing storms.
            The wind is already picking up my hair, and I know this is one of the storms I fear almost daily. My brain kicks me into action and I start running towards my shelter only ten feet away now. Underneath all of my supplies I keep very strong, but very light bark strips. Everything I make is tied together with them since I have no luxury like superglue.
            But I make due.
            I begin double tying my shelter roof down with extra palm tree leaves and extra bark strips. I layer the walls with palm tree leaves as well. All this takes about five minutes. I practice my storm survival in my spare time and my spare time has seemed to increase the past few years.
            I step back and admire my work. Not the neatest, but it’ll hold. The clouds loom much closer than five minutes ago. I give my shelter a shove with my shoulder and it stays strong. Good.
            I step inside and check my supplies to make sure I have everything. Net, extra food, a few spears… I reach under the net and realize my canteen isn’t there. I grab my bin and dump everything out - some dust and a moldy strawberry but no canteen. I then realize I left it at the stream. And the stream will flood with all the rain and the stream will take my canteen away. I groan and run outside.
            It isn’t incredibly windy yet, and the rain hasn’t started. I walk around the bend of the island and over to the stream. There’s my canteen, sitting there as innocently as a little puppy. I bend over to pick it up but something on the other island catches my eye. Not a tree, not lighting, not anything I’m familiar of. This something is alive.
            I nearly do a flip turning around. Squinting across the ocean I gasp. The thing has a body like a human, hair like a human, clothes like a human. I run over to the shore ignoring the clench my stomach does as my feet hit water. She isn’t moving. She’s lying on her back on the shore, but that’s all I see.  I nervously glance at the sky.
            I’ve got half an hour, tops.