It would have been the trip of a lifetime, a trip you told your grandchildren about. The story would have started, “When I was in my twenties, I went to this amazing deserted island with my best friends…”

Instead, it started with a line that contained a lot of choice swear words, mostly of the four lettered variety.

And even though it wasn’t exactly the trip they envisioned, it was something they’d always remember; whether fondly or not was another question all together.

“What are we, the Swiss Family Robinson?” Elijah questioned, shading his eyes from the glaring sun above them; though they were shaded by trees, it didn’t help much as the sun was shining at them through breaks in the leaves.

Dom, beside him, grunted, “It’s better than sleeping in that bloody cave.”

“How so?” Elijah countered. “It was cool in there, not muggy and sunny and…crap.”

“It probably had bears in it,” Dom replied, looking terribly horrified. “And I like Yogi as much as the next person----but do you really want to be eaten by one of the wild ones? They‘re not all picnic baskets and confusing the rangers.”

“That cave was dank,” Billy said, pulling his backpack off his shoulders and then proceeding to sit on it, adjusting his sunglasses and hat. “And Yogi wasn’t as cool as Boo-Boo.” Dom rolled his eyes.

Elijah huffed out a long breath, “I KNEW I should have brought cigarettes.”

“Why didn’t you?” Orlando asked, emerging from a clearing to their right.

“Well, you said we were going to an island resort, so I figured they’d sell cigarettes SOMEWHERE.”

“Did I say resort?” Orlando replied, glancing at Dom and Billy anxiously. “I meant to say, erm, retreat.”

Billy laughed, “Retreat would imply spa, this is just a bunch of trees and some sand.”

“Don’t forget the water,” Dom said, pointing towards where they’d come from.

Orlando sighed heavily and sunk down onto a big boulder, “Listen. If I hadn’t had to land, we would be at a resort. I didn’t mean to land here, I misjudged the map and we were out of fuel. We should really be on that next island over there.”

“Oh, the one that had the big Hollywood type sign that read, “CIVILIZATION?” Billy pondered, looking mischievous.

“I didn’t see a sign,” Dom said, glancing over his shoulder to peer through the clearing in the trees at the island which was easily hundreds of miles away.

“You wouldn’t be able to see it from here, anyway,” Elijah mumbled. He turned to Orlando. “I never signed up to play Survivor.”

“Nor I,” Billy quipped. “Not unless that Jeff bloke is here. Is he?” Billy looked excitedly around him, but only saw trees and his three friends. “Ryan Seacrest would be okay, too. He’s fun. I could sing something for him. And, Orly, you could pretend to be that Simon cow and be mean about my lovely voice.”

“We’re not on a game show,” Orlando said blandly. He sighed again, “I’m really sorry about this. If we could find some fuel and fill up the plane, we could fly over to the right island.”

“Why didn’t you bring extra?” Dom asked, plonking down onto a nice patch of grass amongst the sand.

“The weight was too much as it was.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?” Dom looked appalled at such an accusation. Billy, Elijah and Orlando all rolled their eyes and didn’t reply.

“Can we swim over there, do you think?” Elijah asked, turning away from them and calculating the distance to the next island.

Orlando chuckled mirthlessly, “Only if you’re, let’s see…a fish.”

Elijah scowled at him. “Well, what do you propose we do, then?”

“Like I said, we’ll make a makeshift hut or something.”

“Like Gilligan?” Billy began jumping around in excitement. “I’ve always wanted to be like Gilligan! Who wants to be the Skipper? And the professor? Lij, you can be him, you’re smartest. OOOH! And we need a Ginger!”

Dom cleared his throat, “One, I refuse to be Ginger. Secondly, what will we use to make this ‘hut’ as you call it and three, I suggest we stop biting each other’s heads off because we’re stuck here together and we have to deal with it.” He let out a breath, having said a lot in one long, run on sentence. On top of that, he wasn’t altogether sure he’d used the correct numbering system for his list.

“I agree,” Orlando said slowly, eyeing Dom nervously. “We can find some, er, trees or something to use.”

“Did you bring a portable chainsaw to use to cut them down?” Elijah questioned, clearly not expecting an answer, and he got none.

“Since when did you become so bloody negative?” Orlando asked him, frowning. “This is an adventure, we should have fun with it. It’s us, four manly men, left to our own devices in nature.”

“He’s right,” Dom said, nodding. “We can have fun with this.”

“Yeah,” Billy joined in. “We can eat rats and go fishing!”

“I don’t think there are rats here,” Elijah said, eyeing the land around him as if rats would soon start springing up from the ground. “But there are probably good fishing spots somewhere.”

Orlando grinned, “That’s the spirit. I have fishing poles in the plane.”

“I AM starved,” Elijah said, seemingly weighing his options. “Too bad Sean weren’t here. He’d have his ‘How To Survive on a Random Deserted Island’ book with him and he could do everything for us.”

“Is that such a book?” Billy asked.

“No, I was being figurative.”

“If we get off this thing, you can write it,” Dom suggested, standing up and pulling his bag over his shoulders.

“Damn,” Elijah muttered. “I hadn’t even though about getting out of here. How will we do that?”

“We can probably make a raft after we make a hut,” Billy stated.

Orlando blinked, “Yes. Well. Let’s get moving.”