Flotsam

When I first saw it, I couldn���t make out what it was. As I drew closer, I could see it was a heap of material. I thought it could be a bundle of cloth dropped off some ship, either on purpose or by accident, and the tides, the currents, had washed it up here on my beach.

Much like I washed up here, three years ago.

Things do wash up on the beach occasionally. Back when I first washed up here myself, I used to come down to the beach every day. I wanted to to see if something had washed up, or to see if there was a ship on the horizon, coming to rescue me.

These days I don���t bother that often. That is mostly because day after day of nothing tends to get wearying, depressing. What���s worse, though, is when something washes up on the shore that reminds me of my life back before I ended up here. It can be anything: a packet, can or bottle with some familiar logo. Even if it was something I never liked, like Coke Cola, the nostalgia is nearly unbearable.

At first, I expected rescue quite quickly. I presumed the world must know, even if most do not care, that the plane had gone down. As time passed, I grew more and more certain they���d presumed everyone must have died in the crash. After all, I was rather surprised that I���d somehow survived myself.

I have no idea it happened, there were the minutes of panic. Then the seconds of sheer terror as the plane fell out of the sky���.

The next thing I knew, I was here, on the beach, coughing seawater and sand out of my lungs as I inched my way up the beach and out of the sea.

I arrived at the bundle of clothes and saw it had hair. Then I saw it had skin, arms and legs. It was a woman. I thought I���d have to drag the poor drowned thing up to the tree line and dig a grave for her. I knew that if I had died in that plane crash and my body had washed up at the feet of someone, even if that someone was a castaway alone on a desert island, I���d want them to do the right thing.

Then she coughed and moaned. I saw her hand reach out to clutch at the dry land as mine had done all those lonely days ago.

I reached down and took her hand in mine as her swollen eyelids flickered open.

���Am I safe?��� Her lips were cracked and broken, but I could make out the words as she croaked them.

I nodded, unable to remember how to speak for a moment��� then I smiled. ���Yes, yes you are safe,��� I lied.