rating:
88.3%
collection name:
Men
description:
Short stories about men, dealing with liife, the universe, & everything.
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Sandal
Sandal. The floatplane touched down in a flurry of spray and slowed, turning to run in close to the shore. Jason nimbly clambered out onto the float and jumped into the water. With a wave the pilot taxied out, and took off. He would be back in four weeks, but Jason felt a chill, despite the warm Pacific sun, as the plane dwindled into the distance. He trudged up the beach and began pushing through the bush into the interior. If this “adventure holiday” didn’t take his mind off Miriam nothing would. Alternatively, it might kill him. This very real prospect no longer frightened him. There had been times recently when he missed her so much he had almost wanted to die. Then the newspaper advertisement had caught his eye, and his interest. “Get out of the rat race! Robinson Crusoe Adventures. Spend a month on a deserted island.” It wasn’t quite that primitive. He had a survival pack, including flares and a small R/T in case he broke his leg or something. On his belt he had a large Bowie-type survival knife, with various useful items in the hollow handle. He even had an SAS survival guide book thrown in. He dug into his pocket to feel the chunky shape of his Swiss Army knife. It had been a present from Miriam and at first he had not wanted to bring it, but had changed his mind later. He might yet be glad of it. The intensive two-week survival course he had taken proved time well-spent, and Jason soon had a small dry shelter built to sleep in, in a natural clearing next to a clean stream. Carefully checking the colour pictures in the book he gathered edible berries and fungi – the dried food packets in his pack were there for emergencies. The stream proved to contain a few small freshwater crayfish, but he took to hiking every few days to the beach, to fish off the rocks at one end and collect shellfish. The rest of his time was taken up with collecting berries, mushrooms, wood for the fire, or those leaves that could be boiled down into sunscreen/insect repellent. They smelled dreadful while cooking, and certainly repelled him, but lost the smell as they cooled, and seemed to work. He had little time to worry about his romantic problems, but sometimes found himself thinking about Miriam at night. He hoped she was miserable with her new lover! He smiled slightly at this picture, then chided himself for being petty & went to sleep. One day, disaster struck. Clambering over the rocks to his favourite fishing spot, Jason’s battered left sandshoe fell off his foot and tumbled down a deep crevice in the rocks. It was too far down to reach, as he quickly discovered, and too tightly wedged from the fall to be drawn up with a fishhook. Frustrated, he retraced his steps to the beach. The sharp rocks cut his unprotected foot, and he cursed as he reached the beach, the salt in the wet sand stinging. Then his eyes fell on the stands of flax fringing the beach, and he had an idea. Cutting the tough flax stalks took hours of back-breaking work, in the hot sun, but eventually he carried a substantial bundle back to his camp. Using his knife he scraped and scraped three flax leaves, leaving the resulting twine to dry in the sun. After a few days Jason judged it was dry enough, and began to plait a rough sandal. The thick sole took up all the flax before it was even a third finished, but he had proved that it would work, and Jason set to scraping the rest of the flax. It took a long tedious time, and left less time available to collect food. His dehydrated food stores were soon badly depleted. Eventually however he had enough twine dried and he was able to finish the sole and plait two slim straps to keep it on his foot. Next day he was proudly wearing it as the plane taxied in to pick him up to return him to civilisation. 
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