Joel’s Island

Joel’s Island

Joel’s  eyes widened in astonishment as the soft sandy beach he had stumbled upon on his random walk across the cliffs began to disappear beneath his feet. Within seconds, it seemed, water had crept over his feet and was sweeping towards his waist. Hastily, he waded towards the entrance to rocky cave he had just been exploring. As he watched in disbelief the cove disappeared beneath the rapidly rising water.

Night came. Daybreak came. Time chased time. And before he knew it he was there for a year. He marked time by the passing of the seasons. The brisk days of his autumn walk turned into the ferociousness of winter. Gales and squalls of icy hailstone lashed the mouth of his cave. Dark thunderous clouds burst open. Rain battered the vegetation.

Nights, black as ink fell early stealing the short day away. In the silent eerie darkness he had terrible nightmares and fantasies of strange horned sea creatures dragging him from his hiding place and roasting him on a pike above a blazing fire, feasting on his carcass and scattering his bones on the cliff face for the hooded crows and other birds of prey to pick over.

In the early gloom of a purple dawn he would wake gasping, rigid with fear, expecting to be devoured

To keeps from dreaming such terrible things in the dark of night he began to sleep fitfully through the day. Awake in the darkness, he studied the beauty of the stars that studded the sky like twinkling diamonds.

Hunger was his constant enemy; too frightened to venture out in search of food he feasted on the small insects that crawled on the walls of the cave. But soon hunger gnawed at his stomach forced him out in search of something more substantial.

As a boy he had went out lamping rabbits and fishing with his father. He had no lamp or fishing rod but as winter lengthened the moon rose high and bright illuminating the island as if helping him in his quest for survival. Not often given to gratitude he found himself looked towards the heavens and giving thanks for such small mercies.

Spring came and the icicles hanging like sculptures outside the cave he had sucked on to quenched his thirst melted. He gathered rocks and formed them into a in a circular dam. Soon he had a stream to bathe in that was replenished each day by the water that sang as it tumbled from the mountain streams above.

Life took on a pattern. He slept during the hours of daylight on a bed of smooth bark he found under a small group of wizened trees that were growing halfway up the cliff face that towered above him

At night he hunted by the light of the moon like the animals he heard scuttling through the wild flora that flourished in the cracks and crevices of the rocks.

In the long silences before daybreak he often thought of his wife Mary. She’d be worried about him. The townsfolk would whisper behind their hands that he had deserted her – run away with another woman, perhaps. Or robbed his place of employment and vanished into thin air. Or both.

He thought about his old life and discovered he didn’t miss it at all. Solitude suited him, he decided. He was a changed man. As changed inside in his thinking as his appearance was on the outside.

The business suit and brown brogues were long gone – used as necessities of survival. His boots had served him well as a drinking vessel and his suit coat and trousers as pillow and later as fire fodder. His once fashionable goatee beard fell long and shapeless below his chin now; his mop of sloe black hair, streaked with grey, hung in tresses around his shoulders as wild and unkempt as the yellow gorse that poked its briary brambles through the cracks in the rocks that guarded his cave.

Sometimes as he netted fish in a strong square sieve constructed from weathered branches of black hawthorn he gazed deep into the bottomless blue grey of the water as it sighed around him like a living thing, he wondered was he in a dream. Or, had he lost his mind and slipped into another realm.

In the end he gave up his reasoning and accepted he was where he was. A peace settled on him. He began to believe the Island was an enchanted place and he was one of the chosen ones.

Each day he embraced his new existence more and more.

Then, one day he awoke from a dreamlike sleep and found the water had silently receded while he’d slept.

Soft sand puffed up by a soft wind stretched invitingly into the distance like a carpet of gold.

He was free to walk away from his island home back to his old life.

Perturbed, he hesitated, this was some kind of new dream, he thought; a trick of the light or the sun.

Cautiously, he stepped ragged and barefooted out of his cave to where once there had been a swelling, swirling sea of trout as colourful as the rainbow

His feet held firm. He began to walk slowly forward one step after the other. Then his pace and his heart quickened until he was leaping and running his head of wild hair streaming out behind him.

As he ran his mind began to make clicking sounds like the hands of a clock turning anti clockwise back in  time. All the worries of Joel’s old life crowded in on him. My wife will understand when I tell her, he thought. She will be so pleased I’m back she will not find fault with my absence. There will be great celebrations and rejoicing I have returned safely to her, he reassured himself.

The back door of his house was as usual, unlocked. Stepping into the familiar kitchen with its pristine white walls and gleaming cooker his mind registered that the table was laid for tea with two place setting. Memories of Mary’s meat pies and sweet bread came to him reminding him how long it had been since he had tasted her cooking.

A strangled intake of breath behind him made him turn around. Mary stood there as if transfixed. Then her mouth open and she began to shriek.

“It’s me, Mary. I’ve come back,” Joel said stretching his hand towards his wife.

Backing away Mary let  out another ear-piercing shriek.

“It’s me – your husband, “he said just as he caught sight of his appearance in the mirror.

Pale as death Mary’s next shriek stopped in mid-air. “You can’t be, you’re dead and buried,” she gasped out.

“Buried,” Joel said incredulously.

“Buried,” Mary affirmed, “in the graveyard beyond the Church.”

“Beyond the Church, a paupers grave,”her husband spluttered. “That’s not even blessed ground!”

Mary shrugged.

He glanced at the table set for two.

“I’m no longer your wife, whether you are livin’ or dead. When you didn’t come back I married the priest who buried you.”

As if he had held a seashell to his ear, Joel heard the plaintive whimsical called of his island. He turned instantly on his heel. He needed to hurry. He hoped the tide was still out.