Two nights ago, about the time the sun was starting to set, I found myself looking at the briefcase again. I felt this familiar warmth toward it returning and intensifying. It’s natural I suppose, considering what it is. If it was a painting, say by Renoir or Matisse, I’m sure I would feel the same way. All us elitists are attracted to the beautiful, and especially to beautiful and expensive things. That’s what art museums are all about. We go there and sit, just to be near beautiful things. It makes us feel good. In the same way the briefcase makes me feel good.
Anyway, I was studying it intently when I became entranced. It felt as though I was entering a mental state that Hindu’s call Nirvana. I guess, unbeknownst to me, I had been meditating. I must have been searching for my soul or the “over soul” that Ralph Waldo Emerson talked about.
But the briefcase made me feel good; it had a presence that I could feel but could not see. At the same time, I began feeling more of this friendship toward the naval aviator. These strong friendships are not uncommon among shipmates but I’m not anybody’s shipmate. But it also exists in the army among men who spend a lot of time together, and especially when they undergo a lot of stress in combat.
This feeling I had was good. I liked it. It seemed to draw me close to it, as I said. But about the time the sun disappeared and the night set in, I came back from wherever I was. It was the darkness that prevented me from continuing deeper into this hypnotic state if, indeed, that’s what it was.
I was much too young to fully grasp the depth of reasoning of Emerson, when I first read his essay on the Oversoul and his interpretations of the beliefs of the Hindu, Brahman. But I did take away that Nirvana, the human spirit, and the Hindu over soul are associated with light and not darkness. Not in anyway are they related to the “son’s of the sable night” nor are they “brother’s to the silent darkness born.”
The best explanation I have of what happened is what some writers and investigators are calling an out of body experience. They say you don’t have to almost die to experience it. They say it can come on anytime before or after a period of extreme stress or during a period of deep concentration or extreme loneliness.
Then there are the writings of Emerson’s friends, all scholars, New England Transcendentalists and thinkers, many like him educated at Harvard, who formed a loose knit discussion group to pursue the subject of eastern mysticism and philosophical beliefs. Most of them were well versed in the Hindu, Brahmin practice of deep meditation as a way to induce out of body feelings. There is no doubt I had been involved in the same thing. Yet, I still think being alone with only the jungle and the sea for company was responsible. It would be interesting to know how many times if any, this same thing happened to Emerson or to old Ben Gunn but for a different reason.
If I ever had something on my mind, the longest I ever thought about it without acting on it was one week. Maybe a little longer if it was a good thing and there was work involved. Maybe shorter if I was being tempted to do something wrong. But I was never able to ignore it or forget it once the idea was firmly planted in my psyche.
Well, it came to me that I was going to look through his briefcase. I knew I shouldn’t but I knew I would. It was just a question of time. But to my credit, I was able to put it off about a week by staying busy.
I rebuilt another cistern to hold twice the water. And then I made some bamboo spears. An improvement to my shelter followed; if it wasn’t any prettier it was a little more rain resistant.
I also did some thinking about making a sling, the kind the ancients used in combat–the same thing David used on Goliath–but for that I needed some leather and for leather I needed a pig.
There were a couple of other things, too. One of the more interesting was a combination of a spear and a sling, the spear being notched back of the balance point. This was another ancient throwing weapon that was quite effective when used by somebody with experience. But I had plenty of time to gain experience and plenty of time to think about it. But again this thing required a strip of leather to make it work, but required nothing if I was just going to think about it. And thinking about things is what I do best. And it wasn’t long before my mind was back thinking about the briefcase.
As soon as I opened it, I saw a knife and a bundle of letters. My mind quickly focused on the knife; here was my answer to the question of how I was going to make a fire. It was what we call a hunting or skinning knife. I guess it goes by other names in other parts of the country. Regardless of where they are made or used, they are all about the same. The blade is about seven inches and the handle about five. They are usually made of good steel and this one was no different. The one I had as a scout was made in Germany of Solingen steel. However, this one was just as good, reinforcing my belief that whoever gave it to him might well have been the person who gave him the briefcase.
I wasted no time in trying it out. I closed the case immediately, with a guilty feeling and set about starting a fire. I located some soft wood, resembling balsa. It might have been balsa, since balsa grows as part of the jungle foliage. I made a pile of soft shavings and then located an igneous rock. It wasn’t flint but close to it, hard as basalt, and was probably washed ashore from some event deep under the oceans crust. But it would no doubt make a spark when struck sharply with the back of the blade of the knife. The spark was all I cared about for now. Later, my mind would wander off, and I would remember what I had learned in geology about the so-called “ring of fire” from whence this island came.
A couple of swipes with the knife produced a spark and surprisingly some smoke. I blew on it and a small flame emerged. I wasn’t as astounded as the first primitive man was who did this, but I was fascinated non-the-less. I never saw it as a miracle, a gift from the gods, as he did, because I understood the cause and effect of what I had just done or maybe I just think I did–but then maybe his was the better explanation.
I built it up and then went fishing. I knew that by the time I came back, I would have a hot bed of coals and I was looking forward to searing the fish the way the Louisiana Cajun people do. Maybe the next time, I would wrap some of them in a palm leaf and bake them the way the Hawaiian people do or maybe cook them over the coals on a spit the way my boyhood friend, the one who taught me how to glom, did it. Maybe I’ll make bisque and throw in some crabs, along with some of the plant roots that grow around here in profusion. The possibilities are endless, and I am getting hungry thinking about some of them.
Chapter 6
The first thing I noticed in the briefcase, after I saw the knife and the letters, were two full pads of yellow legal paper, and a sharpened pencil neatly stored away. The thought immediately came to mind; here was enough paper to record the story of my misadventure.
I want to leave a kind of day-by-day diary of what happened, maybe for the survival people to peruse and then pass on to others. But more than that, I want Gene and my son to know what happened. I find myself thinking about her all the time. And lately, as I have become more lonesome, I have been talking to her. First it was in my mind and then in whispers, followed by full-blown conversations.
I can’t remember when I first wrote her what can only be described as love letters. But I knew at some point I would have to remove them if anybody else was going to read this story. I know it’s going to be difficult because they are an intricate part of it, maybe a complete rewrite will be necessary. But for now they bring her closer, and that means a lot. It goes along way to offset this terrible loneliness.
Besides the letters there were two additional strip maps and one large Isogonic chart of the area around the Solomon Islands that included Fiji. But the thing that interested me most was this packet of letters. I knew they were letters from his wife to him. And I knew they were very personal because he had chosen to carry them, and because they were not left in his cramped quarters on the carrier for somebody else to read if he was lost at sea, and because they were tied with a colored cord.
The return address tol
d me immediately who wrote them. And I decided there and then I was going to take them back to her just as I found them. They were not going to fall into the hands of others. They were to stay in the briefcase and it was to remain in my possession, regardless of navy regulations. Nobody but his wife would ever know I had seen anymore than the briefcase. It was to remain our secret. I knew it would, because I was in a position to make it happen.
The thought crossed my mind quickly; I was his new best friend for a reason. Why had something drawn me toward him from the start. Why was I his friend? Why had I not resisted this compulsion to read his letters? Why, because he had a plan that included me, how else could it have come about?
He would not have appreciated me reading them if he had no such plan. And although I had taken a personal oath not to do it, time would change things. I would come to believe he knew this.
Nobody knows what loneliness does to the human mind. Not unless they have yearned desperately for companionship as I have, do they know how essential it is for survival. Besides there were forces and events at work here that I knew nothing about at the time.
I was to conclude later that loneliness is more mental than physical. Although the physical is important, there needs be a kind of mental association with another mind, what Emerson calls a soul. If it’s not present, a form of senility will eventually set in. If not outright senility then certainly a major personality change. And I know from experience that a person who tries to live alone in his mind is asking for trouble. I think Emerson understood this, too. That’s why the Lord gave humans and maybe some animals, a being, something enduring that is uniquely his or hers, something that can neither be created nor destroyed, something that has always existed and always will.
Now I know some professional religionists may disagree with me on scriptural grounds, but these same experts never spent much time by themselves so I don’t put much stock in their opinions.
Emerson and the Eastern mystics do a better job of explaining this concept, but the simple truth is we all need companionship. If it can’t be human, then an intelligent animal might be used as a substitute.
I understand that pets like a beloved dog can work wonders in keeping the lonely in a healthy and stable mental condition. But the person who chooses to live by himself or herself with no give and take, no sharing of love between their soul and that of another, is going to suffer. Ask Ben Gunn, he knew.
Most people in the North Country in gold rush times, who went without human contact for long periods, understood this soul thing. Jack London wrote about it in his books and Robert Service in his poems when he wrote: “… and a gnawing hunger of a lonely man, not banished by bacon and beans but the gnawing hunger of a lonely man for a home and all that it means. For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above, and oh so cram full of cozy joy and crowded with a woman’s love. A woman who is dearer than all the world, as true as the heavens are true….”
Miners who stayed over the winter in their cabins spoke of having cabin fever. And even married couples, whose souls fail to make contact end up being disillusioned and unhappy in the extreme when left by them selves.
********
It was about the time I started talking out loud to Gene that I read the first letter. I fought with myself for months, swearing that it would be just the one, but in the end I succumbed and read them all–just as I knew I would. I swore each one would be the last. I struggled with my conscience that’s for sure with long delays between them. As a result it took me the better part of a year to read them all.
I don’t know what I’m talking about exactly, but I know how it affected me after a long period, being lonely I mean. I almost lost my faculties–my mental balance. It was not until I discovered they were slipping away or I thought they were that I decided to open the first one. That’s how bad off I was and how desperate I was for human contact.
Ben had found the fictional Captain Flint’s buried treasure in the book and in the movie. He secreted it away in this cave where he lived. And by doing so he saw it constantly, focusing on it and dreaming about what he was going to do with it when he was rescued. It gave him something to think about other than himself. And yes, maybe he had even fallen in love with it thinking of it as a companion, much as I did certain prized toys as a boy.
There was no denying that I had also found a treasure trove in this packet of letters. They were worth a king’s ransom to me. They were fast becoming my one single point of contact with the lucid world that had been fast escaping me. True, at the time, I had read only one, but I read it over and over. It furnished me with all the companionship I required for the longest time.
And true, the more I fantasized about the woman who wrote them the less I thought about Gene.
At first the woman I came to know as Joyce dominated my thoughts. Then after a few months of reading and re-reading that letter I realized I was falling in love with her, wherever, she was. She was a living breathing human being, someplace. When I was completely lucid, I recognized her to be a mirage–a fantasy, a figment of an over zealous imagination. But I didn’t care if she was nothing more to me than a dream and was never meant to be more than that, I didn’t care.
Just as Ben spent hours each day thinking about what he was going to do with all that wealth, so I was making plans to meet Joyce the wife of my dead new friend. It all took on surreal overtones when my feelings merged into a need to comfort her. And I wondered why it never drove me crazy, instead of keeping me grounded as it ended up doing. However, looking back, I know now it could have easily been the instrument that put me around the bend.
But right or wrong it did cure my boredom and it did cure my loneliness, and it gave me something to think about at night. It took my mind off my problems. It acted in the same way that other mind projects did when I was a boy; the ones I looked forward to after the lights were out, and I had pulled the covers over my head; the ones that filled my mind with the most desirable thoughts I ever had.
For the longest time the briefcase, sitting nearby, gave me a warm feeling at night. Then I came to realize it wasn’t the briefcase it was the letters inside that was doing it. And then it wasn’t the letters, they had no special properties either, but it was my thoughts about the woman who wrote the letters. My soul had made contact with another, somewhere out there. It was instantaneous and beyond my control. And somehow in this altered state of mind, I couldn’t help thinking my navy friend knew and understood; moreover, the thought crossed my mind more than once that it just could not have come about the way it did without some kind of direction. And somehow, he being a spirit was in a position to influence my spirit.
Emerson believed that a soul has an existence and like matter has always existed. And the human soul is immortal. He said that we often mistake our ego for our soul–that is we mistake it for our true self. But as I understand him, the ego is transient, destructible but not the soul, which is indestructible. And on some level we are all connected. Maybe our souls can connect with another specific soul by the power of the mind that is through concentration and focus
This might sound like nonsense to you the idea that a soul exists apart from the body and is immortal, but to millions of people who embrace the predominate religions of the world it is understood and believed. I couldn’t help it that’s just the way it was. And while it was happening I struggled against it, indeed, I struggled even as I approached the state of Nirvana feeling more alive than I ever felt in my life.
The upshot of it all was it gave me peace of mind, the one thing most lacking in my life, as it is in many people’s lives. And I began to realize there were many degrees of happiness. And in spite of my situation, I had reached a higher degree. If I had been happy before I landed here, now I was even more so.
I read a book once written by a Jewish Rabbi. To make a point he wrote about a strange tale meant to be an allegory: It seems there was a poor lad who had done a service for an ancient Arab potentate. Th
is sultan was in a position to reward him with immense wealth but he didn’t. He explained that riches would soon vanish and he would be left worse off. But the thing he was going to give him was an ancient secret worth more than anything in the world. He told him it was peace of mind. He told him Allah bestowed riches on many men, giving good health and children to most. But to a chosen few, he gave peace of mind–because without it nothing else in the world was of any value.
Chapter 7
I’m not sure now why I took the long walk down the beach. I had a reason but I can’t remember. It might be because of the abundance of fish. I had easily caught some there before.
That’s when I saw the same footprints near the water that I saw near the airplane. Obviously somebody was here and that somebody had been taking a bath.
I wasn’t nearly as elated as Robinson Caruso was when he saw footprints. As much as I would have enjoyed the company of another human, I saw this Japanese if that’s what he was, as being only semi-human.
Then it came to me why the navy fighter had crashed. Why it hadn’t occurred before, I don’t know, perhaps because I was concentrating on weightier matters.
He had been chasing a Japanese aircraft when he became fixated on the target and couldn’t pull up in time, and there has to be a downed Jap farther up in the jungle and he has to be the source of the light. And I’m willing to bet it’s one of their scout aircraft, the kind mounted on a single large pontoon, the kind they carry on heavy cruisers and launched from the deck by catapult. It was the only explanation why he was so close to this island. If the Jap had been flying a fighter, his carrier would have been miles to the north too far north to be heading for the battle of the Bismarck or Coral Sea. Another reason I knew it was not a Jap fighter, because neither service ever engaged in dogfights with them. As I said before, this was in accordance with tactical doctrine as taught by Clare Chennault.
Somewhere West of Fiji Page 6