Surviving the Dreams

Chapter 3 - The Value of a Coke

Greg and Susan stood in the jungle surrounded by a dozen men armed with spears not thirty feet from the clearing where they’d met the first human being they’d seen in six months: an old Polynesian woman who appeared to be cooking something beside a fire. The men’s expressions looked angry and their gestures threatening, as one poked Susan’s shoulder with the tip of his spear. They’d appeared out of nowhere, surrounding them so quickly, they had no hope of gaining the beach, or alternately retreating from the direction they’d come.

Greg pulled Susan protectively closer to him while the men chattering at them in the same language the old woman used. Meanwhile the woman waddled towards them, talking to the men.

“What are they saying?” Susan said quietly to Greg as she turned her face towards him.

“They are obviously asking questions and are angry, but I have no idea what she is telling them,” Greg told her.

The chattering became shouts as one of the men pointed his spear at Susan’s throat and she abruptly refrained from speaking. Greg arched his brow at her predicament. Feeling desperate to turn things around, he decided to try some introductions and hope for the best.

“I’m Gregory,” Greg tried.

One of the men, the shortest and thinnest of the group, briefly stopped talking. “Gey gu ly,” he tried.

“Gregory,” Greg repeated more slowly.

“Ah Grey-go-ree. English,” the man said.

“Yes. Do you speak English?” Susan asked excitedly.

The man scolded her soundly and touched the point of his spear again to her throat.

“Maybe I should do the talking,” Greg suggested.

Susan nodded, sufficiently impressed by the meaning of the spear refrain from saying anything more.

“We are lost,” Greg tried again. “Can you help us?”

“English no come here,” the man said. “No hunt.”

“We are American. We didn’t intend to trespass but we are lost. Can you help us?”

“Help us?” the man repeated uncertainly.

“Do you have a boat?” Greg tried.

“Boat ... .ah. Come.”

They followed the man not to the bay as they’d originally supposed, but to a small inland lagoon, separated from the bay at its north end via a narrow strip of sand and a winding channel they hadn’t noticed before. There they found four outrigger canoes lying on the spit of land separating the lagoon from the bay. In the very center of the lagoon itself floated the remains of the Oyster. Thirty or forty men were scattered about, working in the area of the lagoon. Most were busy with the canoes, but four were doing a thorough inspection of their craft.

 “Our boat!” Susan cried as they discovered it there.

The man pointed to the disorganized pile of logs and bamboo that floated in the lagoon, festooned by strips of white fabric, which was all that remained of their sail. One of the men was standing on top of the construct, peering into what was left of their cabin. From what they could see, he was trying to extract the three giant bivalves still within it which they’d used to transport live coals for building a fire. To the man’s astonishment, they were warm when he pulled them out one by one. He called to man with them, when he saw him there standing with the two strangers.

The little man they’d been talking to left them briefly to consult with the one on the Oyster as he handed out the first to the three shells.