Page 7 of Stranded

“Oooookaaaaay,” I say, dragging out the word as I try to figure out what he wants from me. I slowly reach forward and take the rock from him. He lets out a little trill and jumps on the spot, like he’s happy. But when I just stare at him, he grunts.

Before I know what’s happening, he leaps towards me and I scream, sure he’s about to rip my throat out for taking his precious rock. But when I don’t feel any pain, I slowly lower my arms from where they’re covering my head, and glance at the lemur perched on my shoulder.

“Eep!”

King bursts out laughing, and I turn my glare to him.

“Eep!”

I turn back to my new friend. “You’re not so scary, are you?”

“Actually, he seems extremely easy going around us. Makes you wonder if he’s seen humans before?”

“There might not be any real threats for him here, so he doesn't know to be scared?” I suggest.

“Yeah, that’s possible,” he agrees.

The little guy grunts, pointing at the coconut I dropped. I gently bend down to pick it up, being careful not to dislodge my new friend. When I look back at him, he grunts again, then points to my other hand still holding the rock.

“Holy shit, I think he’s telling you to use that rock to open the coconut!” King says with wide eyes. I examine the rock and see it has a sharp edge.

“I didn’t know lemurs were that smart, did you?” I ask as I set down the coconut, wedging it between a fallen tree trunk and the boulder so it won’t move.

“Not that smart, no. I wouldn’t think lemurs were strong enough to open coconuts that way. But what do I know? I also thought they only lived on Madagascar, and we clearly aren’t there.”

I kneel down to get myself in a good position to strike the coconut and the lemur jumps from my shoulder to sit on the boulder and watch.

After about a dozen hits, it finally cracks open. “Fuck, yes!” I exclaim, tilting it up and letting some of the water quench my parched throat. I pass it over to King, and he takes his fair share, then we pass it back and forth until it’s empty. He takes a turn cracking open the second coconut, and we take turns drinking until there’s only a little left.

“Okay, well, at least we know we can get water that way, even if it is a lot of work,” King says as I take a seat on the boulder beside my new friend.

“You want some, little buddy?” I ask, holding the coconut up. He tries to take it, but it’s clearly too big for him, so I help him by tilting it up and he greedily drinks the rest of it. When it’s drained, he jumps on my shoulder, startling me. He rubs his head into my neck, then immediately runs back into the jungle.

I stare in the direction he went with wide eyes. I can hear him chattering away in there, like he’s talking to his little friends, telling them all about what happened.

“He’s an affectionate little thing, isn’t he?” King asks with a smile.

“Yeah. That was… nuts,” I say, scratching the back of my neck and thinking how strange that whole thing seemed.

“Let’s see what we have in our bags,” King suggests. We move over to the raft and when I unzip my bag and find two granola bars on top, I cheer loudly. “Fuck, yes!”

“Awesome, thanks!” he says when I toss him one. We eat them quickly, it’s been hours since we ate in the Perth airport in Australia.

“The sun’s setting quickly now,” I say, noticing the sky changing color.

“You’re right. I think we should camp here for the night. I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly ready to sleep in the middle of a jungle where something could sneak up on us from any angle.”

“Good point. Are those rain clouds?” I ask, noticing the gray sky to the west.

“Fuck, I think they’re coming this way, too. We might be in for a wet night.” He looks around the beach and seems to come up with an idea. “Why don’t we flip the raft? We can prop one end up towards the ocean, so we can see and keep the air flowing.”

“Less likely anything will attack from the side, too,” I say in agreement. It doesn’t take us long to get the raft flipped over, but we decide that a strong wind could blow it away or turn it over, so we look for ways to anchor it.

“We need something to sink into the sand, to tie the ropes to,” I say, looking up and down the beach.

“What about something heavy, like a piece of driftwood or a fallen trunk? We could push it through part of the rope if it’s thin enough,” he suggests, and I quickly agree.

The sky starts getting darker quickly now. A combination of the incoming rain and nighttime. We scour the treeline and beach but can’t seem to find anything the right size.