Game of Thrones Workbook

Writing Challenge #1: A deserted island

PROMPT: You're on an deserted island with another person, a tool, and what else? What happens?


We coughed and spluttered as we finally made it onto the beach. For a while there, I wasn’t sure we would make it to the island, but fortune seemed to favor us... at least as much as it can favor anyone after downing their plane in the Pacific Ocean.

After dragged ourselves through the surf, we collapsed onto the white, tropical sands, breathing heavy from the exertion of swimming over a mile. I tried to enjoy the gentle breeze and soft rustling of the nearby foliage, because Lord knows I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it for long.

“I told you so!” She cried, still trying to catch her breath. “How many times I have said that stupid plane of yours is going to be the end of us?”

Yep. Of all the people to be stuck on a desert island with, it had to be my ex-wife.

“A bird flew into the engine, dear. I don’t see how that’s the plane’s fault.”

She looked like she was about to come back with a real zinger of a retort, but she held her tongue. Thank heaven for small miracles!

“Where are we?” She asked.

“Best as I can tell, somewhere in the Java Sea.”

“Thanks,” she said. “That’s real helpful.”

We’d been flying from Makassar to Jakarta, so admittedly, it was a little unhelpful to say that we’d crashed landed somewhere in the span of ocean between those two coastal cities. But she was the one that talked me into helping her move all her stuff to Jakarta where she was going to start a life with some other guy, so I wasn’t feeling like going out of my way for her at this point.

Especially after she trash-talked my plane.

I moved to a nearby coconut tree that seemed particularly tall and sturdy.

“You’re going to fall and break your neck,” she said as I started to shimmy up by wrapping my arms and legs as far as they would go around the trunk.

“I’m trying to get an idea of where we are,” I replied. “When we don’t arrive, someone will eventually track the flight plan we filed and will come looking for us. By then we should figure out some way of signaling them and telling them where we are. The better idea we get of the island’s geography, the better we’ll know where to set that up.”

“I’ll start figuring out what we can do for food and water,” she said. “We’ll probably need some of both sooner or later.”

I reached the treetop just as she was about to set off.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” I called down to her. “The good news is that they shouldn’t have any trouble finding us on this island if we can get a smoke signal or something going. The bad news is that it’s because the entire island is, oh, only about a quarter mile at its widest.”

“So I guess freshwater streams and plenty of game to hunt are probably out, huh?”

“Yeah, I think we’re going to be fishing for our dinner,” I replied, reaching up to knock a few coconuts out of the tree’s bough. “And probably crack these open for water.”

I shimmied down the coconut tree and joined my ex-wife back on the sand.

“At least we have this,” I said, pulling out my grandfather’s hunting knife that I always carried in a shealth on my belt. Like the plane, carrying a large knife on my person was another one of those things my ex didn’t exactly love about me, but I had a feeling in these circumstances, she wouldn’t have too much cause to complain. “We can use it to whittle some spears for fishing, cut off some dead tree branches for burning. If we make good use of our time, we can have ourselves set up pretty well in the next couple of hours.”

My ex and I got to work. I gathered as much loose brush as I could and piled it high on the beach while she used the knife to whittle spears out of heftier dead branches. Within a few hours, she was wading out into the shallow tidepools looking for dinner while I’d managed to put together enough of a bundle of kindling that would make a passable pyre. With a little luck and some vague memories of starting fires by rubbing two sticks together when I was in the Boy Scouts, this would be what got the attention of an approaching plane. I also created a smaller one that we could use to cook the fish if my wife managed to catch anything for dinner.

When the daylight began to fade, we gave up on fishing and resolved to try again in the morning. In the meantime, we cracked open a couple of coconuts and made as good a meal as we could manage out of them as we watched the sun dip beneath the horizon. I sent up a silent prayer that the search and rescue folks would be prompt about finding us at some point tomorrow. Preferably first thing in the morning.

We continued to watch the sun set in silence over gentle waves. It would have been quite beautiful and romantic, actually, if not for the fact that I was watching it with my ex-wife and didn’t have the option of leaving.

(925 words)