Stranded

by Shannon Connor Winward

“If you were stranded on a deserted island, and you could have only one thing to drink for the rest of your life, what would it be?”

Sarah had been watching the ocean, lost in her own thoughts. She cast an exasperated look over her shoulder, but Meredith missed it. Meredith’s eyes were closed. She lay sprawled across her towel, palms up in supplication to the hot tropical sun.

Sarah turned back towards the crashing waves. “Wouldn’t ‘water’ be the appropriate response here? Anything else would just dehydrate you, eventually. Except maybe fruit juice, I guess.”

“That’s depressing.”

“Fine. I’ll take rum.” With a meditative crack of her gum, Sarah pictured herself with a lifetime supply of Bacardi. That was a hell of a lot of mojitos.

“Can you do me, please?” This time Meredith caught Sarah’s look. “I don’t want to burn,” she whined softly.

Sarah took hold of Meredith’s arm and pulled her into a sitting position. She dropped onto her butt in the sand beside her friend and began to root through the collection of objects that Meredith had stockpiled at the edge of the faded blue Power Rangers beach towel: several bottles of sunscreen, a variety of sun glasses, a waterlogged novel with the cover missing, a myriad other items of questionable value.

She twisted Meredith’s hair out of the way, jaw moving as she worked. With another crack of her gum, she squirted some of the lotion with the highest SPF onto Meredith’s neck.

The orange straps of the bikini Meredith wore kept slipping off her shoulders as Sarah tried to smooth lotion over her freckled, pinking skin.  The suit was too large; it sagged in the front, exposing too much of Meredith’s breasts. She was burnt there already, peeling skin and broken yellow blisters peeking above the trim. Sarah chewed noisily and emphatically.

She applied more lotion to Meredith’s lower back. Meredith reached between her knees and plucked a rusty Zippo lighter from the cache of items on the towel. She popped the lid and closed it again, open and closed, over and over with a rhythmic snap.

“If you were stranded on a deserted island,” Meredith asked, “and you could have an unlimited supply of one kind of food, what kind of food would you want?”

“Peanut butter.”

“I want spaghetti,” Meredith said, smoothing her thumb over the lighter’s metallic surface. “Or McDonald’s chicken nuggets . . . sweet and sour sauce. Mint chocolate chip ice cream . . . “

Sarah didn’t like where this was headed. “If you could be stranded on a deserted island with a movie star, who would you want to be stranded with?”

“Johnny Depp. As Jack Sparrow, of course.”

“Yeah, I guess a pirate would be pretty useful on a deserted island.”

“That too.”

Sarah finished with the lotion and sat back, wiping the residue beneath the frayed hem of her cut-offs. She was thankful she didn’t really need sun block. Her own color was deepening to an almost chestnut brown.

Silence settled between them. Sarah passed the hard wad of gum from one side of her mouth to the other and looked out over the long stretch of white, pristine sand. It was beautiful, really, the way the beach arched against the sparkling blue pulse of the ocean. It made her heart ache.

Meredith popped the Zippo open and ran her thumb over the striker. Sarah heard the metal grind, but saw no spark.

“Please don’t do that.”

Meredith scraped the striker again.

Before she could do it a third time, Sarah snatched it from her fingers. “Don’t be an idiot. We might need that later.”

Meredith pouted into her lap. “It doesn’t even work.”

“Well it might start working again. These things are supposed to be indestructible.” With a half-turn, Sarah tossed the lighter overhand towards the tree line. It landed with a soft thud in the sand just short of the ransacked suitcases and bits of debris.

“Whatever.” Meredith fell back on the towel and closed her eyes.

Sarah looked down at her friend, lying rigid on a child’s beach towel in a too-big bathing suit. Despite the sunburn, she thought Meredith looked pale. She was definitely growing weaker.

Forget a lifetime supply. Sarah would’ve settled for a single bottle of rum just to pour over the wide gash on Meredith’s thigh. It was beginning to ooze in a way she was sure meant it was infected, and all she had was salt water.

Meredith must have felt Sarah watching. Without opening her eyes, she said, “If you died on a deserted island, what would you say to God when you saw Him?”

Sarah turned away. She fixed her gaze on the horizon. The more she stared at it, the more it seemed like an optical illusion, reminiscent of those Magic Eye pictures she used to see in shopping malls. The line between ocean and sky wavered, flipping heaven upside down and upright again until she felt like she might fall over.

She listened to Meredith’s sharp breathing beside her on the beach. She knew she should say something like, “I don’t want to play this game anymore.” She should say, “Meredith, get some rest” or, “Don’t worry Meredith. I won’t let you die.” But the indigo line of heaven loomed nearer every time she blinked.

Sarah wrapped her arms around her knees. All she said was, “Ask me later.”

—

Shannon Connor Winward is a mommy and also, sometimes, a poet and author of fiction for children and adults. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in such venues as: Flash Fiction Online, Pedestal Magazine, Vestal Review, Witches & Pagans Magazine, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Flashshot and Dreamstreets, as well as the anthologies Jack-o’-Spec: Tales of Halloween and Fantasy (Raven Electrik Ink); Twisted Fairy Tales: Volume Two (Wicked East Press), and Greek Myths Revisited (Wicked East Press). Visit her blog at http://ladytairngire.livejournal.com.