Fin yanked at the axe’s handle. It was always hardest to gather wood during the rainy season. He braced his foot against the sinewy bark and jerked back, landing hard on his rear. His vision doubled up and fell back in line accordingly. He got back up and took another swing.

His war of attrition with the tree went on for hours. Eventually he won. Not because he wanted to, but because he had to. He was all too aware of it. His arms were sore and his back ached. The sun wasn’t even halfway done with its climb. His stomach growled while he chipped the tree into manageable logs. He carried on until he completed his task. Or at least part of it.

It took another few hours to drag the logs back to his house. Gulls were crying out as if to cheer him on and salty ocean air stuck to his nose. And there it was. Frustration began to jockey his thoughts while he stared at the hole in his roof. And wall. Plus he hadn’t eaten yet. He flung down his axe, and marched over to his makeshift spear. Fish sounded good right now. Too good. He usually hated it, but hunger can make anything look appealing.

He’d have to make a fire when he got back, but it would probably rain. Sunny days had a habit of throwing surprise squalls at the worst of times. Particularly when he wanted to eat. He took one last glance at the hole in his roof. Drip.. drip…

He might have to talk to the others. He would have to interact. They were a nuisance. Always pining for his attention, generally needy. But necessary. He could at least push off their meeting, though. Dinner was the priority.

Fin started for the creek. A clear gush of gush of freshwater moved through the heart of the island. Coming down from the Tree, he guessed. The stream wasn’t too fast, so he didn’t think of it as a river, but creek sounded dirty. He remembered someone from somewhere in a flash. They called streams criks. They were probably a relative or something; the name and face escaped him.

The walk to the stream took the rest of the day. Sunset had spilled its bag of acrylic paints across the sky when he first started to hear the quiet babble. . He grumbled about the humidity, this season was misery incarnate, his reed spear was damp from sucking moisture out of the air, he felt its swollen texture sticking to his hand. It was the kind of sticky air that stuck to your skin like glue. The kind of air that made you sweat to your bone and made your skin shrivel.

He bent down to roll up two muddy pant-legs. His lower back complained. It had already felled a tree, there was no need to antagonize it further. His stomach volunteered a more convincing opinion, however. A guilty pang rushed through him. Procrastination was a hard habit to kick. He’d need to finish cutting the current tree to logs, drag all of its pieces back, and possibly chop up another. A familiar sensation of being useless nagged at him but he really, really, did not enjoy the task. Leaky roof or not.

Stiffly he waddled out into the stream. Cold water nipped at his bare legs and sent gooseflesh up his back. He figured the cool would have been refreshing but it only made him shudder. The ocean’s water was warm. And preferable. Vastly preferable. The catch was that he got stung by a jelly or something last time, and he was loathe to repeat the process. He felt so sick he’d thought he was going to die for sure. One of those others happened to chance upon him though. The memory was weirdly resentful. Fin told himself he shouldn’t actually be upset at the thing for saving his life (again)… but, no one’s perfect. He shrugged.

He hadn’t gone back into the ocean since. He figured he’d work himself up to it, eventually. Maybe.

For now he focused on the fish. The artsy sky had taken on a bruised purple and then darkened. Shy stars poked their glinting edges out one by one. The sliver of the moon played off the clear water’s surface gracefully. Her light was just enough to see the smoothed out rocks underneath his feet. He could see fish too, rose-red scales and dark green shamrocks swimming down the stream and arching wide around him, his pale legs still an unknown presence.

Sometimes it would take hours to spear a decent meal. Plus, he’d have to keep his balance for that long; an art he’d improved upon, but was far from perfect. It didn’t help that the slightest indication of movement would send his fishy friends to the four corners of the world. Off in the bowels of the forest he could hear howling. It seemed harmless enough for now, but it made him tense up just the same. The wildlife didn’t bother him often. But. There was always a but. The howls seemed like they were a little less inland than before.

Back in the beginning, the others had told him what was safe and what to be weary of. He remembered the look on their faces. Or what he thought were their faces, at least. A cloudy look of disgust wrapped the storyteller and the other listeners with fear. Beasts had taken their kin before. They could not forget. They had told him as much. Fin had to admit… it was impressive that they remembered the names of their lost. He couldn’t even remember his own name. Maybe he was jealous.

Ultimately they were a bother. Fin felt very strongly about this. They had tried. Oh, how they had tried. Getting Fin to stick around was the zenith of their ambition when they’d first encountered him. Warm, accommodating, and friendly. He almost stayed. The little tents they’d made for themselves were spacious, and although their life wasn’t ideal, they didn’t seem to be struggling either.

At the end though he knew he couldn’t stay. Their weird faces swam to the forefront of his mind’s eye. Internally he shook his head, and threw a metaphorical eye-roll in for good measure. He wouldn’t actually move for risk of scaring off his dinner prospects.

The others had a village along the shoreline about half a day’s walk towards the cove. When he’d washed up it was like he’d purchased a house in the suburbs. The others practically showed up in force with gifts and cheer. A roasted pig. Which, Fin didn’t think was too big a deal until he’d met them. The pig was in fact, was a very big deal.

The chieftain (that was what Fin considered him at any rate) led his troop of right into his wreckage on the beach. He’d nearly had a heart attack at the sight. A headdress (stuffed so full of feathers that it threatened to take flight at any moment) rested on his head. He introduced himself in some garbled tongue and made his greeting. That was when the rest of the lot circled him and started chanting.

He couldn’t tell the difference between the tribe’s men or women. The circle was moving quickly and the moonlight was bouncing off their translucent skins. He remembered their voices being like fifty wind chimes sounding off in a hurricane. Then the circle cleared and a single file line appeared with a stuffed pig. The hog was mounted and plated beautifully on a wooden platform with four poles to carry it. It was huge. He choked down an astonished laugh, and thought they worshiped the thing based on their show. It was more dressed up than the chief. Apple and all.

Then the chief grunted something that made Fin cringe. Instead of what he thought was going to happen, they put the pig down at his feet. A new smaller circle formed around it, and drew back a blade. This is the end was about the only thought he could muster up. He probably muttered it too. That sarcastic edge was always happy to help stir the pot when the pot didn’t need stirring. Instead, they carved the pig and offered him a slice. Fin realized the roast had already been seasoned as he was handed the first plate. The world’s most awkward thank you clawed its way from behind his dumb lips. The chief’s face swirled into an array of color. Hopefully a smile.

He was still hurting a lot from the crash that brought him to the island. A million years ago now, he thought. The others had carried him back to their bungle after the celebration was through. All in all, their life was not a bad life. But they were different. Too different. At least for him. As soon as he could walk he’d thanked the chief, or who he thought was the chief anyway (their translucent features and ethereal faces were hard to keep track of, he’d found) and was on his way.

They were sad to see him go. They followed him all the way back to the crash site chiming and groaning their bizarre tongue.  Then the others helped him put up the first version of his house. There was no hole in the roof. He supposed he was supposed to feel grateful. Instead he felt drained just recalling it. He turned his attention back to the river.

The fish had relaxed in their caution and were swimming a little closer now. His heart thumped with excitement. A little nipping feeling was gnawing at his left ankle. A fish! His thrill was short-lived. Too small. Not even a mouthful.

He waited.

The sun and moon swapped places by the time he’d gotten out of his head. He couldn’t feel from the knees down, the water was cold tonight. Some remote part of his brain recalled that fishing was supposed to be fun. Relaxing. A time to reflect and be alone with oneself. He found it insufferably boring. Standing perfectly still was hard work, especially when hungry. He chewed his tongue. It reminded him of cheap sugarfree gumsticks.

His skin prickled, the air was cooling off too, and carrying the sweet floral’s of the forest into his nose. It seemed the forest’s earth hewn perfumes carried best in cool of dusk. Fin tried not to sneeze. In order to avoid anymore of realty’s discomfort, Fin promptly decided it was best to leave. Since he couldn’t really leave (not yet, anyway) he turned to his catalogue of foggy memories for something better. The stream’s babble turned into the tempo of fingers sifting through a dusty filing cabinet. The misty air spraying the soft backs of his knees became the tickle of restless legs, searching for something but not finding. His eyes stayed open, but the crick turned into a train of manila folders all the same.

His mind began to thumb through the files, searching for something. It started calm enough, but gave way to the frantic hunt that it always became. There it is. One folder different from all the rest. Its musty paper dyed the boring color of dead grass stuck out like a sore thumb in the ocean of eggshell white nothingness. A dry-erase PROHIBITED painted across the front in lackluster red. He reached for it. Just like the last time. And the time before that. The panic started to scream inside him. This time I have it! was all he could think. Too bad he wasn’t any good at lying to himself.

He grimaced. Right when his thumb got its oily print on that folder it crumbled away in a breeze of dust. This time he actually touched it though. Usually the folder decayed long before that. And that was enough to keep coming back to this place. In spite of himself, some unconscious hand groped fruitlessly for the ashes. No luck.

A very conscious hand began to probe for something realistic. A memory that was in reach. A memory from this place. Anything that he could be certain about. It was something at least. It didn’t surprise him that the memory continued in the same vein as before. But a little before the feast.  A little bit before he met the others. His first memory was of wreckage. Everything before that was empty. No, not empty. But the lights were out. Try though he may to stumble through that dark cavern he would only stub his toe on some impassible armoire. Only, instead of opening it, he just found himself back at The Dark’s mouth. He hated it, but his first memory was wreckage.

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