Something you've been longing for
Ed finally decides to take a vacation. He books himself on a Caribbean
cruise and proceeds to have the time of his life--until the boat sank.
He found himself swept up on the shore of an island with no other people,
no supplies...nothing...only bananas and coconuts.
After about four months, he is lying on the beach one day when the most
gorgeous woman he has ever seen rows up to him. In disbelief, he asks
her, ‘Where did you come from? How did you get here?’
‘I rowed from the other side of the island,’ she says. ‘I landed here
when my cruise ship sank.’
‘Amazing,’ he says. ‘You were really lucky to have a rowboat wash up
with you.’
‘Oh, this?’ replies the woman. ‘I made the rowboat out of raw material
I found on the island. The oars were whittled from gum tree branches.
I wove the bottom from palm branches. And the sides and stern came from
a Eucalyptus tree.’
‘But, but, that's impossible,’ stutters Ed. ‘You had no tools or hardware.
How did you manage?’
‘Oh, that was no problem,’ replies the woman. ‘On the south side of the
island, there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found
if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable
ductile iron. I used that for tools and used the tools to make the hardware.’
Ed is stunned. ‘Let's row over to my place,’ she says.
After a few minutes of rowing, she docks the boat at a small wharf. As
Ed looks onto shore, he nearly falls out of the boat. Before him is a
stone walk leading to an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white.
While the woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope,
he could only stare ahead, dumbstruck. As they walk into the house, she
says casually, ‘It's not much, but I call it home. Sit down please. Would
you like to have a drink?’
‘No, no, thank you.’ he says, still dazed. ‘Can't take any more coconut
juice.’ ‘It's not coconut juice,’ the woman replies. ‘I have a still.
How about a Pina Colada?’
Trying to hide his continued amazement, he accepts, and they sit down
on her couch to talk. After they have exchanged their stories, the woman
announces,
‘I'm going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to
take a shower and shave? There is a razor upstairs in the cabinet in the
bathroom.’
No longer questioning anything, Ed goes into the bathroom. There, in
the cabinet, is a razor made from a bone handle. Two shells honed to a
hollow ground edge are fastened on to its end inside of a swivel mechanism.
‘Wow! This woman is amazing!’ he muses, ‘What next?’
When he returns, she greets him wearing nothing but vines-strategically
positioned-and smelling faintly of gardenias. She beckons for him to sit
down next to her. ‘Tell me,’ she begins suggestively, slithering closer
to him, ‘We've been out here for a really long time. You've been lonely.
There's something I'm sure you really feel like doing right now, something
you've been longing for all these months. You know...’ She stares into
his eyes.
He can't believe what he's hearing: ‘You mean---’, he swallows excitedly,
‘I can check my email from here?!’
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