Island of Men

Chapter 12- "Coconuts and Cocoa"

The trio passed their days in blissful happiness, skipping about the island and feasting on the Paleo diet while creating instruments from reeds and seashells.  

Well, that's what David had planned.  

In reality, they soon reached a rhythm of rising, fire-stoking, food-searching, and mango-peeling.  The major plus was that by a week's time, they were no longer sunburning quite as bad.  Emma was proud to say that she was almost the color of pale cardboard, which was a first in her bubushkan life. 

Also, by now, her stomach was more the color of cheery moss, than Vomit by Picasso.  Life was looking up.  

Well, to be fair, they were looking up.  Most of their time was spent scanning the skies for a plan, scanning the seas for a boat, or scanning the ground for something to do.  Still, nothing came.  Still, no one seemed to care.  There was simply everything and nothing to do.  So they stoked the fires and raged against the dying of the light, and hoped that one afternoon there would be something more than chirpy clouds on the horizon.  

They hadn't explored far; well, far enough around the beach to know that it was in fact, an island.  They didn't want any of that Lost nonsense pulled on them.  But because they were constantly, paranoidly fanning the flames in hope of rescue, they hadn't tipped a single toe on the base of the mountain that capped the island.  

Luke was goal-oriented.  He didn't mind the rhythm, the repetition.  David was tired of eating fish and mangoes.  Miles was eternally confused.  Emma was ready to drop the literal and metaphorical crutch, and hit the road.  

"Well, that's it.  Hasta la pasta, boys," declared Emma on the eighth day.

"First- where did you find pasta and what do you plan to do with it?"  Asked David, in classic Italian fashion, minus the Buongiorno Principessa, of course.  "Second- what are you doing?"  

"I've hit my limit.  Here we are, basically watching our sixth season of Avatar the Last Airbender, and while I love it, I can't sit on this coach of a beach anymore.  We've got to do something."  

Luke looked up from the fire, assessing the costs.  "You mean, leave the signal fire?"

"Does it seem to be working?  Is there anybody to signal?"  Emma spoke the words that they had all been doing the hokey-pokey around, but no one had dared to actually verbalize.  They recognized the truth, yet it still was uncomfortable to consider.  

"Emma's got a point.  And well, we don't have to give up.  If we stock the fire for a day, we can leave it and come back.  It wouldn't be giving up."  Usually, Miles didn't espouse opinions unless asked, which meant that his words had more weight.  The boys knew this.  

"Alright, road trip it is, homies."  David flashed an orthodontist grin, with a bit of mango stuck in his canine.  He didn't mind getting out the camp for a bit.  Perhaps there would be something more substantial to eat beyond the border of their present wanderings.   

So that was that.  They planned to follow the stream up to its source, so no need to stock water.  The fire was roaring, and the day was set to be far from boring as they charged out of camp.

"Emma, you forgot your crutch-" began Miles, proferring the worn wood like a farmer presenting his 12-pound prize carrot to his landlord.  

Emma didn't seem to care at all.  She dismissed him with a cocky wave of her hand.  "I got this, ya blend?"  

"Did you have a Vitamix this whole time?  Are you telling me that we could have been having fish/mango smoothies?"  Combatted Miles.  

"Alright, alright, let's get going."  Luke had noticed the wordplay between Emma and Miles recently and it irked him.  They didn't have time for this sort of thing.  And plus, Emma was far more skilled with words than Miles.  Well, not that she was as good as him.  She just had a knack, that's all he'd admit to himself.  

If the stream was a zipper down at the bottom of a dress, over the course of the afternoon they zipped it back to the nape of the neck, tracing the curves of the land.  The island seemed to stretch on forever, miles and miles of trees and vines and humidity.  

Let's just say that no one was in a congenial mood after four hours in the jungle, sans sandwiches.  That is, the grumblings of the stomachs were many.  But the farther they trekked along the stream, the more the landscape changed.  The trees were lower and fuller and the air smelled tangy and sharp, versus the sweetness they had come to known.  The trees were polka-dotted with orange, oranges that is to say.  

The joy of tasting something else was inexpressible.  Well, not that they didn't try.  They ran around the trees, plucking oranges and juggling and chucking them at each other.  

"It's like having class canceled on a Monday morning!"  Yodelled David.

"It's like warm laundry!"  Mooned Miles.  

"It's like love," murmured Luke, cupping the orange in his hand and realizing something for the first time in his life.  Growing up in a divorced home, Luke always thought love was an etch-a-sketch- play with it and write with it all you want, make promises and beauty, but it can be shattered as easily as three shakes.  But there, with his arms full of oranges, he realized that love was choosing to see the beauty in something that other people don't pause to look at.  He'd had plenty of oranges in his middle-class life.  He didn't have scurvy or anything like that.  An orange was just an orange.  That is, until he had had nothing but mangoes for ages.  

And then an orange was everything.  Love was about choosing to see the good, choosing to regain interest in something that you've had dozens of times.  And there was Emma, a being who for four years had seemed so commonplace to him, so comfortably mundane.  An orange, he thought.

"What'd you say, Luke?"  Asked Emma, eyebrows perched like the Nike swoosh.  

"It's like Dove!  You know, the shampoo and soap?"  

Everyone paused their orange bacchanalia to look at Luke, besides Miles, who wandered off to the right.  

"It's just been a while since we were clean, you know,"  said Luke, hoping to pass by the moment.  "You guys know that I'm not the biggest fan of germs."  They knew this to be true.  

"Hey remember that one time that we had a class party with chocolate fondue at Emma's and she dipped her finger in to see if it was warm enough?"  Proposition David, hoping that Emma would turn and defend herself as she always did.  He wasn't wrong.

"Alright.  Wait one second here.  How else are you SUPPOSED TO KNOW IF IT'S DONE?  Sorry if I didn't want you guys to have cold fondue.   My bad, boys."  Emma, as always, took the bait.  

Miles returned from the bushes with his arm full of brown.

"Speaking of chocolate fondue, I think I might have some good news,"  he said, holding up a brown pod the size of his albion smile.  

Emma had no thoughts of boys and love anymore, because she knew exactly what that pod was.  That was a cocoa bean.  

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Hey loverlies, I have returned.

It's been a long year and I feel so silly just jumping back into this, but some gorgeous people left me comments saying they liked the story, so I thought I'd give writing a go.

Update on my life:  

I'm a Freshman in College.  I now have the first boyfriend of my life, and I realize why people do this love stuff.  

Reading this makes me dig Miles hardcore.  But that's just the author speaking...

Who do you like the best?  

Emma + chocolate

Emma + Miles

David + his dental hygeine 

Luke + his superiority complex