Page 92 of The Island

Heather took the twig out of her mouth and panted like a dog.

Petra continued talking to distract her. “What do you do, Heather?”

“I was a massage therapist. I was pretty good at that.”

“And how did you end up here?”

“My husband was in Melbourne for a conference. About knees.”

Petra began to laugh. “My husband was here for a conference too! About old cars. He’s writing a book. He thought we might find some interesting specimens on the island.”

“Husbands.”

“Husbands.”

“I only really came here for the three-hour tour,” Heather added, weakly singing the three words of the Gilligan’s Island theme, which, of course, Petra had never heard.

“Are you sure you want me to keep going?” Petra asked.

“Yes.”

Heather bit down on the twig again. She bit down hard. The pain was everything. The pain was the path.

The ball in the shoulder was lodged in the muscle. Petra worked on it with her fingers and then the penknife for fifteen minutes.

Heather was drenched with sweat. She had bitten two sticks in half.

“I got it!” Petra said.

Heather gasped for breath in the sand.

She was weak. So weak.

She went down to the sea to bathe the wound.

She was her mother’s favorite saying come to life. The cure for everything is salt water: tears, sweat, or the sea.

The water was warm. It cleansed her. Floated her. Helped her. She wished she could stay in the ocean, but most sharks were night feeders.

She waded out of the water and sat on the beach with her knees tucked under her chin. Petra placed a poultice of wet sand and eucalyptus leaves over the wounds.

“Are you OK?” Petra asked.

“How are the kids?”

“Fine. Sleeping,” Petra said.

“Sleeping? Really?”

“Sleeping.”

Heather nodded and found that she wanted to cry some more, but crying was a luxury and there were no tears left.

25

A black iron nothingness. An ellipsis of time. Perhaps a minute; perhaps ten thousand million years.

A nimbus of yellow goblin light.

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