This dark dystopian short story was written by Landmark student, JJ Davis. JJ said he was inspired by two novels: The Lord of the Flies by William Golding and The Maze Runner by James Dashner. As you read, you will find themes from both novels, such as isolated communities, the tension between normalcy and survival, and the contrast between life and death. Enjoy.
The Island
As I awoke, my eyes burned from the sun that was glaring at me all the way in the sky. I felt the sand on my skin, and as I stood up, it shifted behind me. I saw the water around me to the East and realized that wherever home was, I certainly ended up somewhere else. Next, I looked West, North, and South. The west led me directly to a hoard of palm trees, all bungled together. As my ears started to adjust, I heard the waves crashing, reforming, and crashing again as I was on the end of the island. As I was trying to figure out just how I had gotten there, whether by boat, plane, or if I was kidnapped to be brought here, I heard my stomach grumble and knew I should explore, hoping that there was society somewhere, or if not, that I’d learn how to survive.
As I traversed through the dark green and light green palm trees all around me, I heard crickets, grasshoppers, and other insects singing a symphony, until I ran into another person. They told me of a society that would be able to not only provide food for me, but that I would be able to find community, and if I talked to the chief, I could maybe go back to society.
As I went with this person, I started to notice society, even though every house was built using a combination of wood and weeds. When he brought me to the chief for permission to stay, the chief looked at me, smiled, and declared, “you’ll like it here”. Before that, though, he had to ensure that I was a good person, so I told him what I had remembered, and, having done nothing atrocious in the past hour, I was given citizenship on the island. Right away, I went to build my hut, which was going to be part of the overall community. Though it took me a while to chop my own wood and find weeds to string it all together, my house was makeshift, small, but somewhere I could sleep.
Being a part of the community, which was called “L’Shara” meaning “to love” in the language that a translator of the community was teaching me. My first couple weeks went smoothly as everyone seemed to be pretty nice. As I became part of the community, I started wanting to contribute more as a member, yet there seemed to be gatekeeping within that community. There were only fifty members of the community, so I was added as another worker until the time being. Time passed as I fully became fluent in the language, the scripture and verbal language.
It was a year, and I was finally integrated into the community. More than ever, I wanted to participate, yet, still, I was gatekept from it. The more I wanted to participate the more coldly the community became towards me. An acquaintance of mine went up to me and grimly said, “No one but the chief and his friends can be a leader. Don’t try it.” This was concerning to me as up to that point, everyone was so warm to me.
Almost four years in and I started to realize this community wasn’t what I thought it was. That acquaintance that warned me was murdered in cold blood and when the chief came to announce what he was going to do about it, all he said was, “We’re looking into the matter.” With that, another member was brought into society by the R’Treli, which meant retriever. He looked exactly like me almost four years ago, disheveled, sandy, hungry. He had to build his own hut, and was inducted by the chief to the community.
Just three months later, another member was killed in cold blood and the Chief said, “We are investigating who the murderer is, we will put him to justice.” Yet when I saw the activity of the chief, he focused on the community but wasn’t actively seeking justice. I went to the library – a hut with religious scripture, original work by members, but also past investigations. I though the librarian seemed nice at first, the moment I asked to see the past history of detective work, she became stone faced and said, “that doesn’t follow the rules” and essentially kicked me out. The only works we were allowed to see were the original work and religious scripture.
The more I was on this island, now for almost five years, the more I felt isolated. The community was set up to follow this homogeneity such as nightly community meetings that were mandatory to follow and how we all spoke P’Hori; many of us came from different areas of the earth, yet, on this island we all spoke the same language. They used words like “care,” “community,” “transparency,” and “hope.”- or CCTH for short, and it was the base of our community. Yet, the more I was a part of this community, the less I saw it. Transparency means being honest with one another, the community was emphasizing that we are a fifty-member community and need to stay strong, hope is the hope to get off this island, and care was to care for each member of the island as we all don’t know how we got here. The more I remained here, the more these four words were evaded. The care was at face value, the community was based on survival, not care. The Transparency was lacking, especially between the chief and the people. And hope, it seemed as if they wanted us to stay here rather than to leave.
It was ten years since I washed ashore on this island and I was now 28, but according to the chief, your age was since you came to the island, so I was L’Pho or 10 within that community. The more I stayed, the more I wanted to leave. More murders had occurred, more replacements had come, but the chief never found the murderers and didn’t want to find the murderers. The librarian was uptight and so loyal to the chief that when I asked questions of these murders I was shut down. The new members and old members of the community all seemed to think this was their life.
I decided I was going to leave this island. From that day on, I just went to work and came home. Every night after curfew I went far to the trees, cut some wood, collected some weeds, and buried them. I was going to build a boat. Yet, after two months of building, I went one night to find my spot as I saw the chief and the community across a fire, and I realized they had burnt my plan for the boat. All the wood and weeds I stored over the past two weeks were burning in the fire. I realized that I would never leave this island.
I fell into existential despair. As a member, I knew my time was limited as I was up to being murdered. That time came on the twelfth year on the island. I was sleeping and the chief came to talk to me in his office, next thing I knew, I was getting tired. Next thing I know, I see a gun, which I didn’t think would exist on this island. He led me out in the dark night to the waves where I first washed ashore, he then said, “You’ve been here too long, and I’ve now been here thirty years. We two are the last two originals from the experiment.” I heard a bang and disappeared, I heard another bang, but my consciousness had fainted…faded…
