Alone on an Island

He panted and gasped as he clambered up the nearest tree. The bear had been quite an unpleasant surprise and he could see it pacing about impatiently at the bottom of the tree. A tiny voice at the back of his head informed him that this was probably not a Grizzly, because Grizzlies would shake the tree until... He shook his head to stop thinking about it.

Landing on the island had been the result of a horrible mistake. He had been seasick, most of the time and had not left his cabin for the better part of the journey. Long sea voyages were not particularly his favourite. One night however, when he was feeling a little better, he had gone out to look at the water and had - quite embarrassingly - fallen off. His swimming lessons had finally paid off and he was lucky enough to reach the nearest piece of land. On retrospect, he doubted if anyone on the ship would miss him. Most of them probably didn't even know he existed.

He sighed and noticed that the bear had moved on to greener pastures. He gingerly climbed down, ready at every moment to rush back up again. It wasn't, though, that he was actually suffering. The island wasn't lacking in food, and he had found quite a lot of fruits and nuts and a few defenceless animals, so meals were definitely not a problem. It wasn't altogether dangerous, either, except for the odd bear and that unfortunate incident with the snake. Oh and of course, there was the time when he had nearly used those leaves of poison ivy to...

It was just that he felt so... out of place, here. He had never really been in such close proximity to trees, and that too in such... well.. abundance. The animals were another thing, too. They were.. well, wild, for one thing. The only sort he'd ever seen were at zoos and such, and even they seldom tried to have you as dinner.

He moved towards the beach, armed with a fishing net made of part of his shirt. He wasn't quite sure how to live this life, and had never really had any training apart from a few chapters of 'The Swiss Family Robinson'. He imagined that there must have been a course in college on 'How-to-live-in-a-deserted-pestilent-island', but he was too busy doing Accountancy at the time.
He could see the bear at a distance. He recognised it immediately, and it was the same bear that had been after his blood ever since he had landed on the wretched place. He thought to himself, not for the first time, that it looked a lot like Mr. Goole. Mr. Goole had been his client for quite some time, and whose rather eccentric ideas of the Revenue System had caused him quite a lot of trouble. he was certain that there were quite a few grey hairs on his head that had Mr. Goole's name on them. Come to think of it, almost all his clients had caused him some sort of trouble or the other. It suddenly struck him that life nowadays hadn't really been much different from when he was... well, civilised(for want of a better word). He rarely spoke to anyone and spent a large percentage of his time being attacked or running for cover.

What scared him most, though, was that he was beginning to enjoy it. All this running away and eating fruits and wild animals and such was strangely... invigorating. For the first time in his otherwise drab, wretched life, he really felt alive. But of course he wanted to go home. Of course.... He looked at the bear again. The resemblance was striking. He was just considering naming it Goole, when he saw the ship.

It was pretty close to the island. In fact, if anyone was looking out of the windows, they'd probably be able to.... before he knew what he was doing, he had leapt, crawled and run in the general direction of the nearest tree with the air of one who has had practice in such activities. He started, as it were, to think rationally. Well another ship was bound to come this way in another six months or so. And then he could go home... well... maybe.