Plane Crash Survivors
Plane Crash Survivors
No one will believe this was his first thought.
Even in a plane crash, the present
serves as an anticipated memory.
When all he could think of
was the impossibility of water
catching fire
and how awful he is
for considering the impossibility of water catching fire
at a time like this.
But his next thought was far more pressing.
He never swung a hammer before, never been camping.
He could die, actually, in real life.
But these were echoes in the screaming debris.
And so were his friends.
They sat scattered across economy, a financial exploit
only afforded to true friends.
Now he was sure the world would believe him.
Because now it was incredible. Incredulous. Suspicious.
The lone survivors.
At least that's how his mind worked.
The mouth to mouth didn’t register as gross or erotic.
No red cross appeared on the horizon,
the rescue never came.
No lawsuit lottery retirement,
just more nothing,
and apparently, nothing was all they needed all along.
The vegetarians conceded the boor
as the freshest thing they’d ever tasted.
The meat eaters cried the first time.
The sun trickled through the palmetto thatch and cabin door
like the freshwater stream just steps away.
He used to lose sleep over the news, computers.
So months passed like that. Hell, it wasn’t the night before
he joked to his friends,
how a lifestyle was simply another thing to tire against,
when a stray emerged from the jungle, wild and unkempt
with a report of murder and starvation
on the island’s far side.
The lone survivor, she claimed.
And the friends looked at each other
like an unmade decision
Lucas Restivo is a writer from Massachusetts and performs in the Independent Music Corporation, Intac