Celia's Island

The waves of the storm sent them tumbling into a wormhole that accelerated them through the cosmos.  Celia’s hand met Julius’ and he held her close with protection.  The warmth of his embrace sent ripples of strength through her body, as if he alone could make her survive the transport.  The course of the wormhole twisted and turned, jolting their bodies this way and that, disorienting their sense of place within the infinite expanse of the universe.  At the end of the tunnel there came an explosion of light, and the two teenagers felt themselves cast into an oblivion that materialized into a bluish-green sphere.  Its gravity failed to take control of the wormhole’s momentum, and as they fell through the planet’s atmosphere, the fear of falling became obsolete.  Then there was water, sand, blackness, and nothing. 

Julius awoke to the sound of parrots chirping.  He opened his eyes and saw umbrellas of palm trees shading him from above.  A cool breeze blew in cirrus clouds from the ocean behind them.  When he sat up, he noticed that he was wet and had washed up on the shores of a white beach.  Then he thought of Celia and called her name. 

“I’m here,” she replied. 

She was making a seashell necklace, but the shells weren’t made of typical crustacean material: they were decorated with gemstones.  “Aren’t they pretty?”, she asked. 

“Where in Sam Hill are we?”, he answered. 

“Paradise”, she said with conviction. 

Julius couldn’t believe his eyes.  The scene was something out of a travel brochure.  Palm trees dipped in obtuse angles over the sand in the most exotic way imaginable.  Coconuts and seashells dotted the beach sporadically.  There were none of the blemishes you’d find on a typical beach: no seaweed, broken bottles, or jagged boulders that could disrupt the flow of the tide.  Everything was perfect, even the ocean that lay as calm as a blanket clear to the horizon.  Its waves were as transparent as glass, rolling to the shore tranquilly before settling on it in shades of aquamarine.  Out in the ocean he detected several atolls, supported by a coral reef that upheld more beaches: thin ones that all grew arrays of palm trees that were swaying in the wind.  Julius had never seen a place more otherworldly.     

“Paradise”, he echoed. 

They’d been on a cruiser in the Pacific Ocean.  Julius had seen Celia around the boat, writing in her journal.  He thought it was peculiar how someone should be sitting alone with so much excitement going on around them.  Everyone else on the boat had either been swimming in the pool, eating at the buffet, or entertaining themselves with the grand assortment of shows, games, and miscellaneous activities inside.  Julius himself spent a lot of time on the top deck, either lounging by the pool or playing supersize chess with his brother.  The pieces were big enough to be infants, and the brothers liked to pretend that they were actual generals commanding courtyard armies.  Most evenings, after dining in the restaurant and watching a show with his family, he’d wander to the top deck again, to relax and watch the stars with only the ocean breeze as his company.  Whenever he went up there at night, that mysterious girl wearing the silver dress sat in the same spot doing the same thing.  What was even more odd was that he never saw her look up from the pages she was writing in. 

He’d been watching a hypnotist perform when the hurricane had come, rattling him out of captivity.  It churned waves so large that they’d upended the boat and sent all its passengers overboard.  By chance, Julius fell into the water right where Celia flailed for her life.  He grabbed hold of her right when the wormhole appeared. 

Back on the beach he glanced at the curious girl, wondering what was going on inside that head of hers.  His mouthed gaped in awe when he saw what she was doing.  She was writing yet again in the very same book.  He noticed that it was completely dry, as if falling into the ocean and washing ashore had never even happened. 

 

The first few days were long and awkward because they both were reserving of their thoughts.  Neither of them commented on the fact that they were afraid for their lives.  There was no way of knowing how long they’d be on the island, or if it was even possible to be rescued, since all evidence indicated that they’d left Earth.  The air was similar here, yet different in ways that only those accustomed to northern regions would find peculiar.  The sand was softer than what you’d find on Earth- not quite as rich in silicates- and the palm leaves on the trees were larger than what they’d seen in photographs of the tropics.  Fruits they gathered from the rainforest had more sugars and nutrients in them than the the fruits of Earth.  When Celia first bit into an orange grape, she felt as if she’d been injected with a shot of B12, making her feel euphoric and replete with energy. 

Julius thought they might have to live there for the rest of their lives, so he immediately took to building them a home.  When Celia wasn’t writing she would either help him build it or watch him from afar. 

On the afternoon of the second day, she saw him taking a shower in a waterfall that fell near the middle of the island.  As he stripped from a cloth he’d fashioned out of palm fronds, she accidentally 
broke a twig, startling him.  

“Who’s there?”, he asked.  There came no answer, so he waded his way in the direction from which the sound had come.  The girl got frightened and made a run for the beach on the opposite side of the island: a side they hadn’t explored yet.  On the beach she slipped and fell to the ground.  Before she could get up, the half-naked boy tackled her back onto the sand.  As they wrestled around, the hem of Celia’s dress got stuck under her knee, so that when the boy tried to hold her down, he accidentally felt her where he shouldn’t.  Celia screamed, shoving him in the face, then got up and continued running up the beach. 

She stopped in mid-stride, looking up in wonder at a green cinder cone volcano that rose from the sea on a peninsula jutting out from the end of the island.  Julius walked up behind her, staring at the monstrous chunk of Earth just like she was.  The girl’s dress blew in the wind, her otherwise straight blonde hair momentarily messy from the westerlies marauding the island.     

“Celia, I’m so sorry... It was an accident, I promise.” 

“I’m sorry too.  I shouldn’t have been looking.  I...”   

She turned around to see him but couldn’t look him in the eyes.  “I have to go.” 

He watched her run up the beach, back into the forest towards camp.  When he looked back to the volcano, he noticed a faint but steady stream of smoke escaping from its peak. 

 

Nighttime on the beach was far more surreal than daytime.  Five moons were lit up in the sky, each of them different shades of red and blue.  Their reflections on the water made the coral underneath glow with a luminescence only seen in cities like Las Vegas.  The trees out on the atolls were all brightly lit, as if they were covered in Christmas lights, the darkness from the ocean beyond enhancing their color.  The sky was speckled with stars a thousand times more abundant than the ones seen from Earth, and to the right of one of the moons there swirled the nebulous interior of a galaxy.  Shooting stars put on a show for them as they sat together on the beach underneath torches they’d lit.  They talked about how far they must have come, whether it was possible to find their way back to Earth, and what might have happened to their families after the shipwreck.  Julius told her about his dreams of becoming a pilot and Celia told him about the kittens waiting for her at home.  Then she told him that she was cold, so he held her in his arms, and she felt more comfortable than she had since arriving.  

That night they dreamt of being lost in places they were already familiar with, for the island was as earthly as any, and their surroundings felt familiar in subtle ways.  Fear was prominent in them, especially in Julius’, because he was the one who had to take responsibility by being the man in a place he didn’t know anything about, whereas back on Earth his father usually took charge in situations where matters of life and death riddled the mind with indecisiveness.  My intuition says this, but my mind says that.  Which of them would save me and which of them would get me killed?  My mother always said to follow my heart, but my father taught me to listen to reason.  How can I choose between them; which one can I trust?  Clowns and carnies laughed at him in the dream.  He found himself trapped in a memory of when he was four years old, wandering through a cluster of circus tents.  He couldn’t find his parents, and nobody could hear his cries.  There is nothing more fearful than a lost infant, and the dream revealed how deep down he felt like one.  He woke up sweating, indignant, wishing he was back home designing imaginary airplanes. 

 

“What are you writing in that book?”, he asked her one day. 

Celia looked at him pensively, her pupils darting left and right.  “It’s a story I’m writing.  The book is magic and so am I.  Creation springs from a pen the way a plant grows from a seed.” 

“Magic?”  He looked at her suspiciously as he continued to sharpen a stick he’d found.  She didn’t say anything else, so he asked if he could read it. 

 “You can read it when I’m finished... If I ever do finish it.” 

Julius laughed and hefted up the spear he’d made, testing its balance.  “Every good story has an ending.  Where did you come from, Celia?” 

She looked up at the sun and smiled inwardly.  “I come from a place where lanterns drift on lakes and buildings look like teapots.  Dragons on fire fly through the sky and mountains of limestone rise from the Earth over terraces where farmers grow rice.  And there are palaces Julius, forbidden palaces where secrets are kept that no one has seen since the journeys of Marco Polo.  Their red roofs slant the way kites do in the wind, and so do their temples, which rise so high that they look like the vertebrae of a human spine.” 

Julius thought it sounded familiar, but would not have been surprised if she was describing another world, like the one they were on.   

“Japan?” 

“No, China.  My father was a sailor and we went to live there after he retired.” 

Suddenly a rustling came from the brush.  A savage dressed in leaves looked down on them from a boulder.  He wore a necklace of bones that rattled as he lifted his spear off the ground.  Julius lifted his own in response, but not without betraying his lack of confidence, for the spear of the savage was longer, sharper, and decorated with pictographs all the way up its shaft.  The savage gave a war cry, causing Celia to bend her knees in submission, pleading with him to put his weapon down.  He couldn’t understand her, but he read her body language and looked back at Julius, expecting him to do the same.  Celia asked Julius to put his spear down; he did so reluctantly.  The savage walked up to them with a swagger, looking into Celia’s eyes deeper than anyone ever had. 

“Sarto”, he said, holding out his hand in greetings. 

Celia slowly got up and said her own name in return.  Sarto looked at her as if he’d never seen a human in his life.  Julius also gave greetings, but the savage only glanced at him in return and looked away.  He said something in his native tongue before walking back into the brush. 

“He wants us to follow him,” said Celia. 

“How do you know?” 

“A girl just knows these things.” 

Julius shrugged and followed them, picking up his spear just in case the savage decided to change his mind.  It was a miracle they’d found another human; all the other species on the island were either birds, insects, or fruits.  They hadn’t found any meat to consume, so they’d had to try bare-handed fishing.  It was likely that Sarto also faced the same struggles finding food.  Knowing that he might take this opportunity to slaughter them made Julius uncomfortable, but he would have done it by now if he’d really wanted that.  Still the thought lingered in his mind, that in case the presumed cannibal decided to eat them he’d better bring the weapon along. 

They followed the savage into the heart of the island, where smells and sounds unknown to them polluted their senses with dread.  On the pathway a lotus flower unleashed an oversized mosquito-looking thing with razor sharp teeth, which Sarto prominently swatted. 

“Racos”, he said in explanation. 

“Remind me never to come to this part of the island,” whispered Julius in Celia’s ear. 

“Julius!  I forgot my book...” 

“Who cares?  We’ll get it on the way back.” 

“What if we don’t come back?”  After she finished the question, they heard the distant sound of thunder coming from over the sea.  Sarto stopped in mid-stride, gesturing for them to walk faster. 

After elevating some four hundred feet they came to a cave. 

“Is this where you live?” asked Julius. 

“Fam, bamingo... valchee.”  

The walls were covered with diagrams of what looked to be aircraft parts.  In the far corner Julius made out what appeared to be a single-occupancy airplane made of wood and other materials from the jungle.  Sarto let him inspect it and he marveled at its precision.  This caveman had apparently built a full-scale aeroplane all on his own, without any guidance.  The whole thing was made of wood, which might explain why he hadn’t been able to leave the island yet.  Instead of an engine there was a set of pedals, meaning it could only be powered by human muscle.  Julius had read that it was possible to power yourself into the air if a plane didn’t weigh too much, and perhaps this planet’s gravitational force and atmosphere were weaker than the Earth’s, making it easier to pedal it off the ground.  To the left of it there lay the fragments of several unsuccessful models the savage had built prior to building this one.  He must have been working on getting the dimensions of his design correct for years.    

“Do you have a runway?” he asked him. 

Sarto looked at him quizzically as Julius spread his arms out to make it look like he was flying.  His face lit up with an enormous grin.  He led them outside the cave, speaking excitedly in the unknown language.  Julius thought he reminded him of Tarzan, or Friday from Robinson Crusoe: two uncivilized brutes from his favorite childhood books.  He led them up a rise and on the other side of the island they could see an airstrip that he’d dug up and smoothed out.  While Sarto was talking he pointed to a place in the sky just above the horizon, indicating the direction he wanted to take.     

“Why that way?”, asked Julius. 

“Better yet, why didn’t he just build a boat and take his chances at sea?” replied Celia.  “There must be something in the air out there- a warp-zone, like the one we came here through.” 

Julius thought for a moment.   

“Do you think it’s the same one?  Maybe he’s from Earth!”   

Thunder crashed again, and Celia grabbed the savage for protection.  Julius was hurt that she felt more comfortable in his arms than his own, but this wasn’t the time to make drama out of nothing.  They’d only been on the island for three days, but he’d already developed a special feeling for her, a feeling that made him want to prove to her that he could protect her better than anyone.  She was cute in her own way, the kind in which innocent solace paints a face with a certain grace and delicacy.  There was nothing flashy about her and nothing that made him think about her in dirty ways.  It wasn’t only the way she looked, but the way in which she made him second-guess himself that drove him to want her.  Confusion clouded his mind whenever he thought about her, and since she was the only one he knew on the island, he thought about her a lot. 

Sarto rushed them back towards the cave, where they’d be safe from the storm.  He pointed out several things that were wrong with the machine he’d built, and Julius helped him make the necessary adjustments to fix them.  He reoriented the airfoil and cut off unnecessary weight from the frame to help it gain maximal thrust.  All the aerodynamic ratios were correct, and if the wood had a good enough strength-to-weight ratio it might fly.  The savage’s enthusiasm seemed to suggest that he was close to getting it off the ground, and he became pleased with his new friend’s suggestions.  

Suddenly rain started falling.  An ominous noise reverberated off the walls of the cave.  Ommmmmm it went, like a Tibetan chant.  The trio looked at each other in bewilderment.  Even Sarto didn’t know where the noise was coming from. 

He ran out of the cave with his new friends close behind.  When he got to the top of a mount he gazed upon the volcano, which had become enshrouded by a green mist.  Thunderheads had drifted in from the shore to mingle with the venting mountain to produce a dreadful atmosphere of sound and color.  The noise came again; it looked as if the volcano were speaking.  It was puffing smoke out of its caldera, like quotation-clouds of doom. 

“It sounds like the Gates of Hell are opening,” said Celia.  Wrinkles of tension spread across her face.  Raindrops that may as well have been tears of fear started falling from the sky.  She knew the book was going to be soaked through down in the lowlands, its ink smearing as the water drenched its pages.  The book!  What was going to happen to them now that the book was gone? 

Hundreds of black figures suddenly flew out of the volcano.  They all made horrible screeching noises that could be faintly heard from where they stood.  A small tremor shook the land, then a larger one- big enough to be a magnitude 6 earthquake.  More horrific sounds came from the volcano- this time from the bottom- where a multitude of caves held their entrances.  Darker smoke started billowing from the caldera, while lava started spilling from its rim. 

Sarto saw the figures that had flown out of the volcano were heading straight for them, so he gave a hearty cry and bade his friends back to the cave.  When they got there, he began moving the plane down to the airfield, and Julius started helping him.  The birds that flew above them looked like bats, only larger, and with talons in place of their claws.  They didn’t attack, they just continued soaring towards the ocean knowing they’d have to find a new home.  Despite the departure of the winged beasts there were more monstrous noises coming from the rainforest.  Julius thought it might have either been the acoustics of the thunder echoing through the cave systems or the lava flow destroying everything in its path.  He knew they’d have to hurry, or the lava would reach them before they could get off the ground. 

From out of the forest came a rabid creature that looked like a crossbreed between a rhinoceros and a spider.  It had eight legs, a muscular body, and a noticeable horn that protruded from its face.  It went straight after Celia, but Julius stepped in front of her and stabbed it with his spear. 

“Holy Hell!”, yelled Julius.  “Help him get that plane down to the runway.  I’ll fend off anything else that comes out of that inferno,” he said through the thickness of rain. 

“No, Julius... You’re committing suicide!” 

“We’re about to die anyway.  A death without a fight is a true suicide.” 

 “Julius, I...” 

 “Go, dammit!” 

She hugged him, thanked him, and ran off to help Sarto with the plane.  Legions of lightning rippled across the clouds, alighting the smoke from which the unseen volcano burned from beyond.  Ash fell from the sky and mixed with the rain, making it feel like mud was falling.  More of the creatures emerged from the jungle and the mud made their feet slide on the ground, which worked to Julius’ advantage.  Because his feet were steadier, he was able to deliver broadside blows to them.  No meat could be found on this stinkin’ island and now that I get some the freakin’ apocalypse is here?  Five more emerged, then ten, and the brave boy felt like he was done for, until he heard Sarto running up from behind to join him.  He looked back and saw that Celia was pushing the plane down to the airfield on her own.        

The evilness of creatures that kill despite knowing that their lives are already ending is something that cannot be registered in human morality.  The type of outrage that Julius felt because of this injustice served to help him in defending his friends.  He and Sarto had successfully held off the second wave of creatures, but a third one emerged from the brush, even more deadly than the other two.  To the boy’s horror the redness of cresting lava revealed itself from behind this wave of attackers (which turned out to be a blessing in disguise since it was swallowing up all the lagging ones).  Nonetheless, both boys looked at each other knowing their futility against fighting these forces of nature.  They raced one another away from the scene, in retreat.  Julius could see that Celia had gotten the plane to the airstrip, but she wasn’t getting inside.       

“Oh murder in heaven, get in the plane you idiot!”        

Inside the clouds above the horizon there appeared out of nowhere a silvery thread of ether that cut through space and opened it up.  The savage shouted with joy and passed Julius, who stumbled behind him and fell into a puddle of mud.  One of the creatures had caught up to him and bit him on the shoulder, bringing him down to the ground, paralyzing him.  The creature got up to finish him off, but Celia threw a rock and hit it square in the head, knocking it unconscious.  She grabbed hold of Julius, lifting him onto a boulder just before the lava could burn them to ashes.       

“Did he make it?”  The boy’s words were barely audible through the singeing of soil beneath them.  His blood was everywhere, and it had gotten all over her hands, but it didn’t startle her.  Nothing washes blood away like the detergent of love. 

“Listen to me, Julius,” she said with tears brimming around her eyes.  “On the boat, when I first saw you, my heart lit up like an explosion.  I... I wanted you, and I brought you here.  I found the book locked away in a chest I’d found in the forest near my house in China.  The owner didn’t want anybody to know about it, probably for a good reason.  It really is magical.  Whatever you write inside it comes true.  My life was worthless, I wanted to get away with the man of my dreams, but I never expected this.  I’m so sorry this happened.”        

Julius couldn’t believe it, and yet it made perfect sense.  She had written in it constantly and must have created both the savage and the airplane to help them return home.  Once she’d lost the book she’d no longer been in control of her fantasies.  That was when both the storm had come and the mountain erupted.  As the rain washed the ink away, so did it wash away her world, disappearing right before their eyes. 

“You could have written about world peace and ending poverty.  Why me?  Why this?” 

“It was so selfish!  I know... I just didn’t think of those things.  If only I had another chance.  All the suffering around the world you hear about is from reports and second-hand witnesses... Claims by people you’ve never met about things you’ve never seen.  When people haven’t actually witnessed the suffering of others, it’s difficult to put theirs ahead of their own.  Oh Julius, but even if I had brought tears of joy to the children of Africa, the sound of music to the sweatshops of Asia, taken away nukes from all the great world powers, and saved millions from dying of cancer, then I wouldn’t have met you.” 

“Enough,” he said through dying breath.  “Celia, before we die, I want you to do something for me.  The lava below us has relished in the pigment of thy ruddy skin and enhanced it tenfold.  Your beauty stretches beyond the boundaries of space and into the infinite of mind and soul.  Kiss me, my love.  I’ve never been kissed; so shall it be that I depart this world embracing my final treasure.” 

It was like a beautiful nightmare.  She kissed him on the lips as he clang to his last moments.  “Wait a minute, I never talk like that.  Did you write that part down?” 

“No,” she laughed.  She smiled at him, brushed her hand along the side of his face, and held him the way she’d wanted to after watching him bathe in the waterfall.        

The sound of Sarto’s voice eradicated the sentimentality of the moment.  Celia was elated to find that he had come back for them.  She looked down at her lover, saw that his eyes were closed, and knew that if she didn’t act now, she would die with him there on that rock.  She jumped onto the back of the plane as he pedaled it past her.  If she could have looked back to see his body lying on the rock where she’d left him, she would have, but it would have meant risking the loss of her grip on the plane.  Thus, she held on for dear life as it skittered its way toward the opening over the horizon, leaving him behind. 

 

It wasn’t easy teaching Sarto communal life on Earth, for he had in fact not been from there; he’d been a creation of Celia’s all along.  She often wondered why he hadn’t been destroyed with the rest of the book and the world it was lost on.  Perhaps it meant that the world hadn’t in fact been destroyed- that it was still there, and the ashes of her old lover with it.  That her world might still exist gave her hope, but she found herself feeling guilty for leaving the person whose death she felt responsible for alone on that dying world.  Staying to die with him would have been the romantic thing to do, but she’d saved herself instead.  Her mind played tricks on her whenever she thought about the moment.  It would tell her that she’d never really loved him, because if she had then she would have died with him, like true lovers do in better stories.    

That guilt was extinguished years later when a man surprised her on the street, a man who looked like Sarto had when she’d first seen him in the jungle.  She knew instantly that it was her lost lover Julius, and by all the miracles of heaven and Earth, he had the book with him.  They had both been spared from the volcanic island by some form of magic that was bound to the book and followed it wherever it was taken.  He’d built a boat made from what little wood was left for him, sailing to another island where he’d built a plane of his own.  He told her about the countless times he tried to “write” himself back to Earth, but the book wouldn’t let him unless there was conflict involved.  Celia reminded him that a story can’t exist without conflict, so the book wouldn’t work without one.        

Together they wrote down what dreams they’d had while holding each other on the island.  Earth became their utopia and there was no longer any suffering.  Tears of joy shined on the faces of hungry children in Africa, children were liberated from the sweatshops of China, tanks and bombs were taken away from the great world powers, millions were cured of the clutches of cancer, and Celia and Julius finally had each other.  To prevent anyone from corrupting the book by using it to their advantage, Celia wrote one last thing at the end of it: 

 

This book shall henceforth cease to exist. 

 

Then she threw it into the river and let the current take it wherever it may.  But she had forgotten one important thing: where was the conflict in the story of destroying it?