The Desert Island.
The Desert Island has become nearly impossible to reach.
An imaginary hobo ship of inappropriately appropriated styrofoam and broken beer coolers sails upon listless seas with no sign of the unpopulated haven. Sure, there are cupholders. And it’s not so bad to just float.
Flippers flippering. As a palm slaps the water, the juvenile splash explodes for no one.
Sunburned and squinting. The touristic oceanic dot drifts further and further, sketching the edges of oblivion to sweet, soft ukulele music. Pure scurvied delusions of lonely, droning feedback.
Herein is the problem and solution: The island cannot be reached with only one set of eyes and ideas. There has to be an alternative view, a reciprocating entity, a bear-trap prototype traced with four connecting pupils. The only part of the equation that demands any thought or action is the identity of the accompanist. Who is your equal, your other half, your best, first and last mate?
You can choose anyone to go with you to your earthly Valhalla. In the Mad Lib Universal Work Book of your Mind, etch that name onto the smoky tablet of the blue above. Because you’ve arrived at the everlasting scorpion bowl. And to whom you hand the extra straw might only be one cresting wave away.
Who matters most?
Hold on. I don’t know if I’m selling my soul enough: This isn’t your ordinary desert island.
Tropical trees overflow with assorted salted nuts and always-ripe berries. Like Freya to Freyr, a naturally formed hot tub lies in perfect contrast to the cool, deep pools of fresh drinking water. Dolphins obviously speak in a British accents and are ridiculously polite, if not a little pretentious. The weather never gets angry, the beach is always the bed.
Sure, the luaus can become tedious. Cliches materialize quickly when you’re drinking from a fractured coconut in a dirty grass skirt. But every sunrise and nightfall is breathtaking, an expanding purple and red bruise, the rolling wrestling match between heaven and earth.
—
To all the summer school teachers who wish to understand the subtext in order to army crawl through class time:
I/we didn’t show up into this existence to merely/meekly see a movie — I/we came to wrestle. I/we came to connect.