I don't know how long I've been lying on the sand. Maybe it's hours, maybe it's years.
It's the first time in the last few days I can finally feel something firm under me. The sensation of constantly rising and falling hasn't completely gone away. My head is buzzing. I can't even sleep.
Eva's the only one who doesn't seem to have any problem at all. By now she's come and gone from the beach a hundred times. Every now and then she comes over and tells me something, but I don't pay attention to her. I'm happy to watch her leave again.
It's like she's got the devil in her. Where the hell does she get all that energy? Now she shows up again, bends over me, and presses her mouth hard against mine.
God, water! I gulp down the life flowing from her mouth into mine, and my eyes fly open.
"Water? Where did you get water, Eva?"
She grabs my hand and says simply:
"Come!"
Since we hit shore, the only thing I've done is lie on the sand, as far from the waves as possible. Only now do I realize how thirsty I am.
I follow behind her. The sand is hot. Here and there are bits of broken shells and chunks of hard rock.
Water!
I'm in such a hurry I slam my toe into a rock and blood spurts. I've fucked up my nail. I stop, pull off my T-shirt, and wrap my foot. The girl waits patiently next to me. When I'm done, she points to a small crack in the rock.
"Look, there. Water."
I lunge like a madman. She's right. I shove my hand into the crack, cup my hand, and manage to scoop out a little water. It stinks, but it's water. We take turns drinking, and when I stick my hand in again, there's nothing left.
"That's it?" I snap, disappointed.
"That's all I found."
"There has to be more somewhere. Keep looking, Eva! Let's search!"
For the first time, I look around me carefully. Ugh, I was right: it's an island. Of course it's an island, and not even a big one.
When God finished writing our story, He put a period at the end of the sentence. This island is that period. A dot tossed into the middle of the ocean.
"It's about seven hundred meters long," the girl says.
"Uh-huh, you had time to measure it," I say, pissed off. "And the width?"
"About five hundred."
"Perfect," I growl. "We've got plenty of room to die of hunger and thirst."
The girl kneels and looks at me.
"Come," she whispers. "We have to thank God for being good to us."
I feel the blood rush to my head. Thank Him? For what the fuck am I supposed to thank Him? I look around, and I don't see any reason to be grateful. We're... a man, a woman, and a deserted island.
For this you want me to thank You, God?
"Go pray if that makes you happy!" I say, backing away.
I step over the cursed rock with my cursed foot wrapped in my cursed T-shirt. My toe hurts like I'm dying.
God, just so you know, I'm really pissed at You! Just so you know!
Four days have passed.
Looks like our deserted island wasn't always this deserted. In the middle, we found a steel tank. Right above it there's a big steel funnel attached. It's a simple rainwater collector. Simple, but effective.
On the first day, Eva and I managed to pry off the rusty lid, but inside there was nothing except a little hot water.
"It's busted," she said, showing me a rusty hole that lets daylight through.
"No shit?" I asked, annoyed. "Did you actually imagine it was going to be full of water?"
The day before yesterday, in the island's green center, among the trees, not far from the cauldron, we found a few red, juicy stalks. I chewed on them with Eva watching.
"You want some too?"
"No. And I'd advise you not to eat them either."
In less than fifteen minutes, I'm puking nonstop. Now I know not to touch the red, juicy stalks again. But what the hell else am I supposed to put in my mouth?
The clouds have been circling us for two days. It's a clear sign something's coming. Rain? Uh-huh... God, help! Everything is dry on this island, forgotten by man and God.
There are a lot of empty shells in the sand. I know they're empty. I checked them one by one. I didn't find a single living one.
Eva doesn't seem to feel the lack of food. She keeps walking back and forth, like she's trying to spite me and prove how active and energetic she is.
"We have to gather dry pieces of wood and build an SOS on the beach," she told me yesterday.
So we worked together for a few hours. The SOS came out pretty nice, but besides us, nobody came to admire it.
No big planes. No small planes. I haven't even seen birds. Not even flies.
How is that possible?
On the other side of the island, we found a wooden crate painted green. The paint is peeling, and the hinges are rusty. White letters on the lid and the sides. Cyrillic letters, I recognize them. Did the Russians make it all the way out here?
"I know this kind of green crate," I say, frowning. "It's used for hauling ammo. It used to be full of cartridges wrapped in wax paper."
"How could it have gotten here?" she says, amazed.
"It doesn't have to be the Russians," I explain. "Could be some Asian guys supplied by the Russians. Ivan exports weapons to the whole world, from Africa to South America."
Together we checked the whole island, inch by inch. Beyond this little forest there's nothing else. Just rock, white sand, and more empty shells. And our so-called forest is really just a tangled mess of bushes and vines. About forty trees.
I'm not big on flowers and plants. Never have been. I don't recognize a single weed around here, but one thing's for sure: these trees aren't coconut palms. I don't see a single coconut anywhere.
"How weird," I complain to Eva. "Usually in movies, shipwrecked people always find coconuts and bananas and wild pigs just begging to be roasted on a spit. But here everything's empty."
"Then we need to start fishing," she answers half-heartedly, then looks at me and... smiles.
Eva smiles? Yeah, like she's got something to smile about. It's the first time I've ever seen her smile. It feels so abnormal for someone in her situation to smile that I just stare at her without saying a word.
I'll admit it, she looks almost pretty when she smiles, but that won't fill my stomach.
One more secret fear I've got is that some giant wave, a tsunami, will come over us and wipe us off this tiny island completely. The highest point on the island can't be more than five or six meters.
The trees don't count. A tsunami is fast. You don't have time to climb a tree.
Besides the clothes on our backs and the two life vests, our only wealth is my fanny pack. Inside it I've only got a few things: a pack of cigarettes ruined by salt water, a half-full lighter, my bank card (yeah, money won't be a problem), and my passport. Only the covers survived the brine. The pages are toast.
That's a problem. If some fat customs lady sets foot on this island, I'm screwed.
I'll admit it, I was never crazy about grub, but now I'm starting to miss the spicy dishes from that little restaurant in Phuket.
I'd settle for a crab in spicy sauce. Anything would do. I'd even eat a cat grilled up and stuffed with little chunks of garlic.
Dreams. On this island there's nothing alive. Not even one damn mosquito.
But I'm a stubborn, creative guy. After a few hours, I come up with a plan, and I can already see myself holding a big, fat fish in my hand. In my mind, I see myself cleaning it and eating it.
I dig into the sand on the beach. I want to set up a fish trap. I'm not in a hurry. Time isn't a problem here.
I work focused and manage to dig a kind of channel in the sand, then I connect it to the ocean and my little trap. I reinforce the sandy edges with dry sticks and braided vines. Eva watches my masterpiece in silence.
"I'm architect material, Eva, aren't I?"
"You think it's going to work?" she asks, shaking her head.
"Of course it will! As everyone knows, fish don't have much of a brain, so all we have to do is wait. You'll be less pessimistic when you've got a roasted fish in your hands."
"From your mouth to God's ears," she says, smiling. "If you had some fish for dinner, I'd feel safer with you on this island. I saw the way you were looking at me a few hours ago, and I didn't like it at all."
"That's where your mind goes?" I ask her, laughing. "I'll give you this, you've got a sense of humor, but I wouldn't get full off you. You're too small."
The truth is hunger is screaming inside me, but I wouldn't serve her for dinner. I like her. Instead, I'm going to fish for her, I'm going to feed her and protect her. That's how things have worked between men and women since the Stone Age: the man feeds the woman! Period.
Toward evening, I'm even hungrier. This is no joke. Time passes, but the fish refuse to be fooled, and that's that! I've seen a bunch of interesting, beautifully colored specimens, but none of them was dumb enough to get itself caught in my trap.
I know it takes time to become a professional fisherman. Still, it'd be encouraging to catch at least one fish, even a tiny one. Hunger is tearing me in half and, this time, I catch myself staring with longing at Eva's small ass cheeks. What do petite women taste like, anyway?
I sigh and try to think about something else. If I've got nothing else to do, I'll go look for some dry wood.
I find some and start a fire near the cauldron. In the heat of the flame, I melt a little piece of my life vest and get a hot, sticky paste. I plug the rusty hole in the cauldron with it.
I look carefully. There are other holes too. I plug them. When I think I'm done, I discover yet another one. For fuck's sake, this cauldron is full of holes like Swiss cheese! I use the rest of the paste and cover everything carefully. I hope it holds.
"We'll find out with the first rain," Eva says, dead serious.
I look at her, irritated. This girl with black eyes and hair the color of ripe wheat is starting to get on my nerves. There couldn't be a worse person to be stranded with on an island.
The fire's still going. I heat up the edge of my bank card a little and make myself a kind of knife out of it. With a lot of patience, I manage to give it a serrated edge. Then I rub the card against a stone until I get one side good and sharp.
I look at the result of my work. The card is so scratched up you can't make out a thing of the writing on the back anymore.
"Well, it's still a knife," I whisper to myself. "It's functional, right? That's what matters."
My kind of knife would make a prehistoric man die laughing, but I'm damn happy with the result. I'm a resourceful guy. I'm the shit! Thank you, MasterCard!