I moved closer to the surf, bringing a hand up to shield my eyes from the sun as I narrowed them. I was sure there was something there. I couldn’t have been seeing things… could I? How long did concussions last? My attitude must have surprised my fellow passenger, given how he mumbled something that sounded like a question.
“I saw something,” I said, forgetting for a second how my words would be lost on him. While he didn’t understand me, he did mirror my behaviour by following my line of sight with his own eyes. Progress made, I suppose. Due to our language barrier, we were going to have to learn to communicate more with our bodies. May as well start now, I thought.
I went back to looking for the object but couldn’t find it. Had it been nothing more than a ray of sunlight reflecting off the waves? Then I saw it again, not that far from us. “There!” I said, pointing at it. “Something metallic, reflective.”
Leaving my makeshift cane on the sand, I took a step forward, then another. The water was cold on my legs but this was too important. It might have been something from the plane, something that could help us.
As I waded farther in, the incline steepened. A few steps later, I had water up to my hips. Despite the cold, my limbs welcomed the chance to exercise once I started swimming. I discovered a strong current trying to push me to the left, making me correct my course accordingly.
That’s when I also realised that this sea or ocean wasn’t as calm as I’d thought. The further away I got from shore, the stronger the waves grew. Strong, big and relentless, they tried to swallow me whole, seemingly determined to push me back from whence I’d come. I could feel my limbs burning under the strain. And it was getting harder and harder to keep my head above water while pushing through this undulating barrier. Oh well, at least I wasn’t cold anymore.
I wasn’t far from my destination when a U-shaped piece of metal with a black plastic grip on top made itself known. That shape could only have been a luggage handle. It was so submerged that I would have missed it if not for it bobbing in and out of the surf at irregular intervals. A couple of strokes later, my fingers wrapped around the plastic.
To my relief, I found out that there was a whole suitcase attached to it, a large, heavy one that was either dark blue or black. I knew I’d have a hard time towing it back to shore, but I had to try. Whatever was inside could be useful to us. Who knew where the current would take it if I left it in the water? Likely the abyss, never to be seen again, I thought, clinging hard onto the handle.
I turned and began the long swim back to the shore. While it helped a little to have the waves at my back, I kept having to correct my aim while fighting the current. I had to learn to use the momentum of the waves to push me ahead, an exercise in acceptance and surrender more than anything else.
With my increased distance, I could see the whole of the island. I could see the entire length of the beach, see where it morphed into the roots of the mountain I’d woken up next to, see how it curved into firmer ground on the right. Dark grey boulders and moss-covered earth grew steeper and higher, forming the beginning of the cliffs we’d seen earlier that morning. Then the trees sort of morphed into the mountain, as if they were one giant organism rather than two separate entities. Though the trees covered up the crash site, it wasn’t hard to pinpoint where it was. Not quite in the middle of the island, no. More like a little closer to the mountain than the cliffs. That there wasn’t anything else in sight but untouched, forgotten nature made it easy to find.
When I got to the point where I had my footing back, I half swam, half walked my way out of the sea, dragging the case behind me while using its natural buoyancy to the best of my advantage.
My fellow passenger hadn’t moved, just stayed at the water’s edge with his gaze locked on me while I shivered my way out of the salted waters and dragged the water-logged luggage onto the beach. The expression on his face was impossible for me to read. His thick eyebrows had drawn closer together, but I couldn’t tell if that meant he was worried or angry. Since he didn’t seem like the kind of person who spends much time worrying about others, I decided it had to be the latter.
I knew it’d take me a long time to stop shivering, longer still to dry. I just hoped my morning swim had been worth it. Oh, how I longed to go back to the tail and cocoon myself in the blankets we’d left there. But curiosity got the better of me.
Sitting the case down on the sand, I started looking for the suitcase’s zippers… only to discover that it was locked. “Bôrtâ tzouze,” I muttered as if the old tongue of my region would get it to open. But under the circumstances, a sealed case was indeed a ‘nasty thing’.
Back at the crash site, we shared leftovers from yesterday’s dinner in silence. I’d brought the suitcase with me. After all that effort, I was determined to get at its contents. While I sipped some water to finish my meal, I looked around for a rock jagged enough to break the lock.
A gruff voice broke the silence, making me look up to see the man standing up. He was looking away from me, towards the fourth direction that we had yet to try. It wasn’t hard to guess his intentions. He wanted to go and explore, see what he could find.
The morning swim hadn’t done my leg any favours. Besides, I was too tired to move that far. Despite the two blankets I had wrapped around myself, I was still wet and shivering.
“Don’t worry,” I said, my fingers narrowing on a suitable rock. “I’ll be here when you come back.” As usual, the comment was lost on him as he got going without so much as a glance back. I watched him until his thin, lean frame disappeared into the trees.
Returning to the task at hand, I started banging my rock into the small metallic lock. It took me twenty tries to admit that it was a lost cause. The lock was too well-made to break open.
Time for Plan B, I thought, refocusing my attention on the zipper instead. As many an outfit I’d worn could attest, they were far more vulnerable to being torn apart. This time, it only took a couple of hammer blows to the plastic teeth for it to come loose. Feeling the same tingle of excitement I did when opening birthday or Christmas presents, I finally pried the suitcase open.
It contained an assortment of men’s shirts and trousers—thick, warm ones, thankfully—along with several pairs of underwear and socks. Since all of it was drenched, I laid them out to dry. Maybe some of it would be of use to my fellow passenger. I wasn’t so sure the trousers would fit, since he was rather tall and these a bit too short. But I was certain he could get some use out of the shirts and sweaters.
And if he couldn’t, I sure could. Wearing anything warm at all would be a blessing for me. Although the wind was refreshing at times, it got cold during what passed for night time here, with that damn dampness being a constant. We both needed as much insulation as we could scrounge.
There wasn’t much else left in the luggage: basic toiletries, a couple of paperbacks that had to be in Swedish, a water-logged laptop that no amount of rice could save.
I was flipping through the wet pages of Johan Theorin’s Skumtimmen at random when my fellow passenger came back. He sat down, allowing his skeleton-like frame to melt onto the grass. His panting slowed as he allowed himself to rest. Though he said nothing, I knew what he’d found. His trip had led him to another dead-end of water and nothingness. Since his tired face and stooped shoulders spoke volumes, what need was there for words?
Our carvings in the sand had been truer than we’d intended them to be. We were stuck on an island, surrounded by uncharted waters, etched next to a desperate cry for help that no one was going to see. Though this stranger whose name I didn’t even know sat down inches away from me, I’d never felt more alone in this world. Then I realized that maybe I could change one of those things.