Calico Pennants

by David A. Ross

  “It’s about time...” she addressed him.

  Surprised to come across another of his kind, he acknowledged, “It’s the nature of this place.”

  “Have you always been here? “ she wanted to know.

  “Shipwrecked,” he said. “How about you?”

  “I once lived in New York City,” she told him.

  “What happened?”

  “That life went down the drain,” she said.

  Buenaventura knew something about abrupt changes and found no need to inquire further as to the means of her arrival. For he felt as if he’d come upon some part of himself that he’d not previously recognized as missing. Mutual destiny became their rite and purpose. “What are you called?” he wanted to know.

  “I am Jewel,” she said simply.

  “And I am Buenaventura!”

  Two spirits had been released from the confinement of a linear world and delivered into one of beauty and bliss—a world made on the first day of Creation for their specific rendezvous. At once theirs was a magisterial relationship, aphoristic since the beginning of time.

  Compelled to practice the manifold rituals of courtship, yet understanding all along that ritual must ultimately give way to preordination, they soared above canyons and waterfalls and took harborage from inclement weather inside tree hollows and cliff side rock notches. They explored every demarcation of their new home: its sounds; its smells; its topography. They played the game of flight and pursuit. They cooed and preened, and she slept beneath the warm and protective cover of his wing.

  “We don’t need the humans anymore, Buenaventura,” Jewel observed.

  “But without us they are probably helpless,” he said.

  “What is it about them?”

  “They won’t give themselves away. They remain hidden behind artifice.”

  “Why?” Jewel wished to know.

  “Because they’re frightened of currents and draughts and storms. Over and over again they make themselves empty amidst a world of plenty.”

  “But they act so superior,” said Jewel.

  “It’s true,” BV conceded. “That’s because they don’t realize that every other species sees through their duplicity.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Killing the Albatross

  CUT OFF by the impenetrable forest and steep mountains, Julian paced up and down the shoreline bitterly muttering to himself about the Scoundrel’s infernal carburetors, about his ineptitude as a sailor, and about the obvious limits of his beachfront encampment. Knowing another was somewhere present on the island, yet having made no contact with his benefactor, only reinforced his sense of isolation to the point of despair. He ate the fruit left for him by Amie, and he fished.

  “Buenaventura!”

  His outcry tumbled back at him from the wall of the escarpment at the end of the beach. The note left by Amie promised that the parrot would help him locate her, but Julian had not seen the bird for days. Where was he?

  In frustration Julian sat on the sand with his back against a rock and looked out to sea. How vast the ocean was! Cast adrift for two weeks without bearing he’d not fully comprehended its enormity. Suddenly he was aware of his diminutive position.

  “Water, water, every where,

  And all the boards did shrink;

  Water, water, every where,

  Nor any drop to drink.”

  Like the Mariner, he’d killed the Albatross, his arrow being default.

  No effort at reconciliation was made as Kelly slammed the door on their marriage; no protest lodged as Kirsten ran like a refugee for Seattle; and no rally mounted on his behalf by co-workers in an attempt to save his job. Nor had he the courage to entice Tamara Sly with all her ambidextrous possibilities... Truly a castaway before the fact, Julian had been seduced by a Siren of the Sea then set adrift to pitch and roll with the current. Sucked into the vortex of enigma he was now the prisoner of his own feckless initiative.

  AMIE APPOINTED her particular charge to everything within this tropical capsule. Here she was supreme goddess. Yet with the arrival of the man, she realized, a critical plurality had been reached. In time he would compromise her influence, abridge her power. The balance would shift.

  It had been three days and still he had not come to her. Perhaps she should not have entrusted the fickle parrot to guide him to her encampment, but from the start Amie knew she could not be the one to approach. She climbed to the top of the promontory and hid herself amidst the rocks and foliage. From her belvedere she watched as he sat, motionless, on the beach, looking out to sea. Perhaps she understood how he was feeling. In time he would come to terms with the fact that there was no escape. The island’s mutable validity would ultimately impose itself upon his attitude. One grew accustomed to abstractions.

  I have learned to be my own best friend, thought Amie to herself. Until now I have been all things human to this domain and I have come to cherish the harmony I impart. Would it be selfish to wish for peaceful continuity?

  She left her reconnaissance post and walked through the banana grove to the place where the pure waters of the Seven Sisters consoled her uncertainties and replenished her inner beauty. Today she bathed in the last of the descending pools, for the water in this pondlet was the warmest of the cascade.

  ON THIS PACIFIC ATOLL loneliness synthesized its own peculiar sound—one that emanated from deep within Julian’s temperament. First perceived as distant thunder, these reverberations flowed up from his solar plexus and into his chest. They rattled his rib cage and surrounded his heart. Not a single drop of replenishing rain moistened his sunburned, parched lips.

  And had Amie not come to him in his time of desolation and illness, suicide might now be a serious consideration. Indeed, what a pathetic legacy his human bones would make! Julian took up a handful of sand and sifted the white granules through his open fingers, and it occurred to him that each falling grain defined the retreat of sovereign possibilities. If only this friend called Amie would reveal herself...

  The full moon rose behind him and cast its glow upon the crests of the incoming waves. Stars swirled overhead, while the tide ebbed and flowed to incomprehensible rhythms. In a single breath Julian exhaled everything he’d once assumed true.

  AMIE lay on her inflatable life raft bed, the same rubber raft she’d salvaged long ago from the wreckage of the Electra. Now, she seldom thought about the crash—or about her airplane. Not inclined to retrace her steps, Amie focused intently upon the present. She contemplated the yellow moon in the indigo sky; she bathed herself in the sentient breeze; she watched geckoes climb bamboo curtains half-lowered on the windward side of her structure.

  Yes, it was a beautiful tropical night, but Amie was restless. Naked, she tossed and wrangled beneath her woven mat. It was a night filled with fantasies; torpid dreams; forgotten lust; fires cooled by loss of polarity, then suddenly, surprisingly rekindled; pleasures abandoned for the sake of emotional survival, now precipitously recalled.

  Tonight Amie was aware of her body. Try as she might she could not relax. She ran her hands over her warm stomach, felt the fullness of her breasts, followed the lines of her waist and hips. Her inhalations grew deeper and deeper. In the darkness Amie self-consciously touched her femininity and felt the humid warmth of her first menstruation since coming to paradise.

  CHAPTER 13

  Encounter

  MUSTER UP! You’re looking rather pathetic, Captain!” said a voice from over Julian’s shoulder.

  He turned to find the bird perched on a nearby limb. “Where have you been?” he wanted to know. “I haven’t seen you for days!”

  “Whirlwind romance,” answered the familiar.

  “You?” inquired Julian.

  “Imagine the ego,” said BV. “Do you think humans are the only creatures on earth who appreciate a pretty face?”

  “Of course not, but...”

  “Tamara Sly was half your age, Captain, but I volunteered not one word of criticism.”

>   “What makes you think I had it for Tamara Sly?” Julian kidded.

  “Most humans don’t realize it,” BV needled, “but when they’re sexually aroused they give off an unmistakable mating scent. Not to mention the fact that they get a shamefully guilty look in their eyes. As a species it’s impossible for you to watch yourselves: you’re far too egocentric. But if you could see yourselves I think you’d be terribly embarrassed.”

  “You don’t say,” said Julian cynically.

  Just then Jewel flew up to join her mate.

  “Julian,” said Buenaventura, “this is Jewel.”

  Quite surprised, Julian came face-to-face with BV’s vibrant mate for the first time. “The pleasure is all mine, I’m sure.”

  “Sometimes his attitude seems rather condescending,” BV told Jewel, “but he means no harm.”

  She seemed prepared to accept BV’s human comrade without proviso. “Perhaps it’s time we lead him to Amie...” Her suggestion could not have been welcomer.

  Guided by the two macaws, Julian climbed the south-facing promontory, up a path he’d not previously noticed. The morning was gray and steamy as he moved to initiate his redemption. Sweat poured off his brow. His heartbeat was wild, though his breath was strong.

  Hopefully the apex of this five-hundred-foot hill would become the apogee between maddening isolation and fellowship; for apparently a covenant had been conceived, with or without his conscious consent, between the remote, esoteric woman, Amie, and himself. Of course Julian was grateful for her kind and able ministrations during his illness, still he could not imagine who or what he might find at the end of this trail.

  Descending the promontory through sauna-like alcoves, he emerged around a final outcropping of large, moss-covered boulders. Crossing over a stream he entered the perimeter of Amie’s enclave. The rough-hewn home site certainly fascinated Julian, yet he was disgruntled as well. For he’d fervently hoped to come across some sort of community, not another castaway like himself!

  Respectfully he approached the house. He called out a greeting but nobody answered. He walked round and round Amie’s tree house, noting various improvised conveniences: the rope ladders made from banyan vines; the bamboo shades and palm-thatched roof with leafy shingles; the intricate system of gutters fashioned to deliver water from the stream. Judging from the relative sophistication of her house, she’d lived here for some time. Apparently there was much she could teach him about survival on the island, but generally Julian found the evidence of her longtime residency disheartening. He certainly did not plan to spend the rest of his life here!

  With cupped hands he drank from Amie’s reservoir. Having quenched his thirst he ventured uphill from the house. He discovered the banana grove and picked one of the fruits to eat. She was living a life of comparative abundance while he waited on the beach for rescue, famished and expiring. He wondered why she’d not approached him sooner. Why such reticence? Why such mystery?

  Amidst his parade of speculations he almost failed to distinguish her as she came walking up the Seven Sisters path. As shafts of sunlight filtered through the tops of the trees, highlighting her long, curly hair, Julian beheld Amie for the first time. Slim and lithe, she was radiant as an emerald, and he blinked his eyes thinking he might be inventing such a creature. But Amie was no mirage. The perfect manifestation of her environment, her smooth face was without tension. Graceful arms descended to pliant hands and elegant, slender fingers. Her hips were girlish and her legs were long and muscular. She appeared strong and agile, decidedly feminine.

  Through gray-green eyes she seemed to be shamelessly apprising some aspect of his bearing beyond contemporary understanding. Julian, in turn, thought he recognized her from some other place. But where? Then he remembered: The girl whose reflection he’d seen in the tide pool on Maui had implored him to subscribe to a timeless, recurrent reverie.

  “Welcome,” she said. Her voice was deeper than he might have expected.

  “You must be Amie...” Julian stood up and began to move toward her. The suddenness of his advance startled her, and she recoiled. He stopped. “My name is Julian Crosby,” he offered.

  “Are you well now?” she asked.

  “Completely recovered, thanks to you.”

  “When I found you, you were dangerously dehydrated,” she told him.

  “How did you know I was there?” he asked.

  “The blue macaw led me to you.”

  Julian craved contact from the deepest part of his entity, yet he was receiving signals imposing restraint. Each watched, waited, speculated in silence. On a nearby limb BV and Jewel sat side by side.

  “This might sound like a stupid question,” Julian said, “but what is this place?”

  “I don’t honestly know,” said Amie.

  “Are there any other people here?” Julian wanted to know.

  “No one else,” she said.

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes...” She was hoping he would soon give up the inquisition so she might simply be his friend.

  “Have you explored the entire island?”

  She nodded. “There’s nobody else here. We’re all alone.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “Same as you,” she said.

  “Shipwreck?”

  “She nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “How long have you been here?”

  Amie shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not sure,” she said.

  “What about your boat?” he asked.

  “Gone” was all she offered.

  The expression on Julian’s face was dubious. He motioned to the clearing where Amie’s home stood. “You’ve made quite a comfortable life for yourself,” he observed.

  “In the beginning I was like you. I slept on the beach. I weathered storms. I waited to be rescued.”

  “But nobody came,” he finished in a low voice.

  “I cried and cried. I lit a fire on the beach. For weeks I never let it go out. I watched and watched until the horizon disappeared. Not a single ship. During the time I’ve been here, I’ve never seen a plane fly overhead.”

  “Right after I swam ashore I thought I saw a plane crash on the mountainside,” Julian related. “I ran through the forest to the place where I saw it disappear. But when I arrived, there was nothing but a lone dragonfly circling and circling.”

  “A Calico Pennant,” she determined.

  “A what?”

  “They’re the best flyers in the world.”

  “Then I only thought I saw a plane...”

  A protracted silence intruded on the conversation. Finally she said, “If you are hungry, I will make you some food.”

  It was a good suggestion. And they walked, not side by side, the short distance to Amie’s house.

  Again Julian examined the castaway as she scrubbed tubers and peeled wild onions to bake with lemon grass inside her stone oven. Her lips were full and her cheekbones high. Her deep tan hid what would otherwise have been a field of freckles. Sandy eyebrows framed emotive eyes. She moved with the grace and agility of one well adapted to such circumstances.

  “Where did your journey originate?” Julian asked.

  “New Guinea,” she said.

  Showing astonishment Julian conjectured, “We must be quite far south...”

  “The island is situated very near the equator,” Amie informed him.

  “I have nautical maps,” Julian offered.

  Amie shrugged. “I don’t suppose they’ll do us much good without a serviceable craft,” she said.

  His enthusiasm fell slightly. “I presume you have observed the full range of seasons,” he said.

  “Many times…”

  Having flavored the sweet potatoes with herbs and extracts, Amie moved to her oven and prepared to make a fire using a piece of convex glass and a bit of reflective material salvaged long ago. Observing the process, Julian offered her a match. She smiled tolerantly. “I don’t need those,” she said. Once the fir
e was kindled and the crock of vegetables was cooking, Amie prepared a luxurious fruit salad. As she washed, peeled, and sliced the fruit she could see that her guest was quite hungry. When the mixture was ready she offered the repast. Julian accepted the compote and immediately began to savor the sweetness.

  “I have a number of useful items,” he told her. Of course he was referring to materials he had taken off the Scoundrel.