Well�I guess you must be wondering how I came to the island in the first place. I don�t want to tell you, though, so you�re shit out of luck. All that matters is that one night when I had had too much to drink, I managed to find my way to a boat; there were many inebriated young people trying to steer said boat, and that never ends well. I don�t remember much about that night besides doing a dirty dance with a male stripper, but when I woke up the next morning I was here. Alone. None of my drunk buddies managed to get shipwrecked, but for some reason I did.
Yeah, my life blows.
Somehow I�d managed to get stuck on a deserted island with nothing but my string bikini, a pair of boxers of dubious origins, a case of Ramen, and a two-way radio. I called for help, naturally. And got blown off, just as naturally. To pass the time, I rinsed out the boxers and watched them dry, and then I radioed again; my troubles were still too insignificant to warrant rescue. Night came, and I put on the boxers for warmth. The next four days didn�t hold much else in store for me.
�I�m stuck out here in the middle of nowhere!� I screamed at my contact at least once a day. �Doesn�t that mean anything to you people?�
�You�re in no immediate danger,� the contact would crackle back, �You have Ramen. If college kids can live off that, then so can you.�
�You assholes!� I�d howl. �You�re supposed to save people! So come and save me already, you lazy bastards!�
�I�d like to, really I would,� he�d tell me. �But we�ve got much more urgent matters to attend to. There�s a righteous game of naked limbo going on right now, and I really can�t interrupt that.�
By the fifth day, I quit bothering to call anybody. Instead, I whipped out my lighter (I always have my lighter with me) and headed for the pretty pretty forest that covered most of the island. They didn�t want to answer my cries for help? Fine. I�d send up the biggest fucking smoke signal in human history and see how long they could ignore that.
And if they did ignore it, and if it did spread uncontrollably�well, no biggie. I�d always kind of liked the idea of a Viking funeral, anyway.
Firmly putting all thoughts of flaming death from my mind, I skipped lightly into the forest, determined to enjoy this too-rare opportunity to indulge in a little pyromania. After going a ways in, I found the perfect spot to begin: a dry, dead area that was surrounded by parched-looking trees. I knelt down near a particularly large pile of dead branches and started shifting the pieces of wood in a more cohesive clump. I picked up a big-ass branch, tossed it, and then grabbed onto another branch without looking back. Unfortunately, the second branch didn�t feel like good firewood: it was kind of mushy. I sighed, hoping that the bottom of the pile wasn�t wet and rotting, and looked back.
Well, there was good news and bad news. The bottom of the pile wasn�t wet�good. The bottom of the pile consisted of a very dead human body�bad.
Don't get me wrong, it was a nice body, a really nice body�if it hadn't been quite obviously dead, I would have hit on it shamelessly. But still, dead people should not just pop up outta nowhere, in my humble opinion. They should be confined to morgues, funeral homes, and my friend Pete's backyard (Pete has problems, major problems�but you won't find a nicer guy. Just try to keep him away from steak knives, okay?) Anyway, corpses do not belong anywhere near me.
But there it...he... was. Dead as a doornail. Deceased. Shuffled off the mortal coil. Gone from this world. Worm food. Etc. I threw up in the bushes as the synonyms danced through my head. It was going to be a long day.
After alternately puking and hyperventilating for a few moments, I forced myself to look at the problem calmly, rationally. Then I dry heaved a couple of more times and sat down next to Mr. Dead Guy. I absently patted him on the back�he wasn't something I needed to be scared of, I knew.
"Well," I said to myself, "This solves several problems at once. I now have a change of clothes, thanks to our body here. He looks pretty fresh, so I can smoke him in case I�m still here by the time winter rolls around. And he's been stabbed sixty-seven times, with a trail of blood leading into the jungle, so I know I�m not alone on this island." I gulped. "Go me."