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Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 8
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Untitled as of yet, Part 2
Here's Part 2, I hope you enjoy it:
Back at the boat, they were eating lunch when Robert voiced his thoughts.
“I don’t understand why you wanted to come back. What are you worried about?”
“Nothing, it’s just useless to wander around the island if we don’t know what we’re looking for or how big it is. Besides, I know how to bring these people to us, if there really is anyone out there.”
“How’s that?”
“We make a signal fire. We take the boat out to sea just to be safe, and see if anyone shows up.” Robert agreed to the plan. They decided to wait until midday, when it was the sunniest, to light the fire.
They spent the next hour or so on the boat, sleeping. Maynard imagined his mother appearing through a thick clump of shoulder-high plants and running towards him on the island’s beach. They embraced, and she whispered to him, “It’s beautiful,” as she pointed in the direction of the forest. He turned to see what she was pointing at, but before he saw, he awoke suddenly from his dream. He came up to the deck, having heard Robert’s calls. He saw him squatting on the beach holding something.
“What’s that?” Robert looked up and smiled. He picked up a long stick that was being used to hold cloth, with “Nowhereville” written on it.
“Is that the name of our island?”
“It was going to be ‘Robert Land’, but I knew you wouldn’t like that.” Maynard smiled, and said bluntly, “It sucks. Besides, it’s not our island yet. If no one shows up after we light the fire, then it’s ours.”
“Fair enough. I’ll just hold on to our flag here.” Robert propped the flag up against a tree, the wind blew the cloth rag that was their flag briskly.
An hour later, a pyramid of sticks and brush had been built on the beach. Maynard and Robert stood around the unlit pile. Both were anxious, Maynard a little nervous about what could happen after they lit the fire. If there were people on the island, who were they, and what were they doing here? Would they be friendly, or hostile? Maynard pondered the question, while Robert’s anticipation could wait no longer.
“Light it already!”
“Heh, alright… sorry.” Maynard whipped out a match and dropped it into a pile of leaves under the pyramid. The fire started small, and eventually the surrounding sticks caught fire and within a matter of minutes, the whole pyramid was ablaze.
“Right. Let’s get in the boat,” Maynard said. He and Robert jogged out into the water and climbed aboard and sailed out a few hundred yards.
Ten minutes past. Maynard and Robert peered onto the beach with their binoculars, searching for any movement.
“We’ll give them a little while,” Robert said. A few minutes past.
“Tell me, Robert, if you don’t mind me asking, if any natives do show up, what do you expect will happen?”
“Do you believe in fate, Maynard?” Maynard shook his head.
“Now don’t get me wrong, I love working with you and the others for Veidt, but I’ve been alive for 44 years and I don’t feel like I’ve done anything truly meaningful with my life. Like I haven’t gotten to the real purpose of my life yet. I believe everyone has a purpose, a destiny… and I think this might be mine. Sometimes I think we need to be nudged onto the right path, because it’s hard to get out of our daily routine. This island, something or someone on it could nudge me onto my correct path.” Maynard wanted to ask where he fit into Robert’s so-called fate, but decided for the sake of argument that he would keep his thoughts to himself for now.
“So what if we find people living here, then what?”
“When we meet them, we ask them who they are and what they are doing here. Then whatever happens, will happen. Maybe they need to be rescued, or they need something from us.” Maynard took it all in. He knew Robert was a deeply religious and spiritual person, but he had never heard him talk about this before. That must be why he was so eager and anxious to explore the island, Maynard thought.
“I see. Well, let’s keep waiting.”
“Yeah.” Another twenty minutes past, and neither of them spoke. Robert was starting to get even more anxious. He shuffled around a little, but never took his eyes off off the beach.
A whole hour went by. Maynard pulled up the anchor and set sail towards the island.
“Wait, Maynard-“
“Bob, they would have come by now. We haven’t seen or heard any sign of life on this island, not even an animal. No birds, no critters, no people. We’re all alone.” Robert stayed on the boat while Maynard extinguished the fire.
“What do you want do now, Bob?”
“I don’t know…”
“Well, you know, since no one was here to claim it, I guess this is our island.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah, just disappointed.”
“Why?”
“I was just hoping that their would be something here. It seems so strange that in today’s world their could be a place that the world does not know of yet.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“So it’s just us, then?”
“Heh, yeah. What do we do with our own island?” Robert’s eyes lit up as the realization came back, that he and his friend Maynard had discovered a new landmass, untouched by the outside world.
“Maynard… what if we lived here?”
“You thinking what I’m thinking? Not only that, but we set up our own nation. A small communal nation that we run, we set up the rules, and make it just the way we want it.” The two friends grinned at each other. “We’ve got the money. We’ll set up a small town with only a few people living there, and we would be the leaders… whaddya say?”
“Maynard, let’s do it. But how?”
“We need to establish ourselves here; let people know that we are living here. We’ll establish our own national sovereignty. We need a name, Bob, and don’t say ‘Nowhereville’.”
“The name can wait. Come on, we should be on our soil when we make these important administrative decisions.” Maynard and Robert jumped off the boat and walked quickly up to the beach. Robert found his old flagstick, and jabbed it into the ground.
“I hereby proclaim this land to be ruled by Robert West and Maynard Trent.”
The next morning, Robert and Maynard were set to leave their newfound island, and return home to Los Angeles. Before they left, Maynard took one of the food containers from the boat, and put Robert and his business cards with the date inscribed on each, inside the container. He scoured the beach, looking for a landmark that he would remember. He found a rock sitting on the fringe of the beach that was nearly as tall as him, that leaned a bit towards the ocean. Maynard dug a hole directly next to the right side of the rock, and buried the container.
“Now that that’s done, we can leave,” Maynard said.
“You really think someone would try to claim that they were here before us?”
“It’s possible. It could be a complication down the road, and doing something simple like burying our business cards will help prevent this. I’ve always said that if you can anticipate any problems that can be solved by something that can be done on your part, especially something easy and simple like this, then you should do it. Now remember that rock, Bob.”
The news in the United States was a huge event, one of those rare events that you see on the news that you can walk up to anyone on the street and ask about, and they will without a doubt know what you are talking about, and will likely be friendly about it. Everyone was able to relate to it. Not because they had any personal ties to the island, or to Robert and Maynard, but because they were American. Certainly, if the discovery had been made by Africans, or the Chinese or Russians, the news of this discovery would not be quite so profound. The news was spread as if Robert and Maynard, like Lewis and Clark, had gone off into the great frontier and found this new piece of land, all in the name of the United States. But Robert and Maynard had found the island purely by accident, however it was theirs to keep. They decided not to voice their opinions on that matter, at least not yet.
“In case you haven’t heard, a new island has been discovered in the Indian Ocean. Quite an event to occur in this day and age, when nearly every corner of the Earth has been explored and occupied by humans. Now, we witness the discovery of a new land by Americans Robert West and Maynard Trent of Los Angeles. The explorers returned home yesterday to tell of their discovery. We’re going to take you live to the Los Angeles City Hall where Mr. West and Mr. Trent are holding their first press conference. Let’s tune in.”
“Gentlemen, can you describe the island for me? Is it tropical, a desert?”
“It’s quite the tropical paradise. Palm trees along the beach, it’s very beautiful and peaceful.”
“How exactly did you find the island?”
“Me and Bob here were sailing the Indian Ocean, we just happened to see it off in the distance. We figured we must’ve reached an island off of Madagascar, but we checked the GPS and it said we were at least 1,000 hundred miles east of there.”
“Are we to assume that the island is deserted?”
“For now, yes. We plan on living out there, with some of our family and friends, if they want to come along.”
“Have you come up with a name for it yet?” Maynard and Robert exchanged friendly glances.
“No, heh, we’re still working on that.”
“How does it feel to be the discoverers of a new land?”
“I love it. It’s a new beginning in our lives. This island could bring new possibilities,” Robert said.
“What are you going to do next?”
“After we visit our friends and family, and see who wants to come visit, we’ll head back to the island.”
“How do you think the island has remained undetected by the outside world?”
“No clue. You’ll have to ask God about that one,” joked Maynard.
A few miles away, on the 43rd floor of the Suvian Building, a man was watching the press conference. On his desk was a phone, several file folders, an analog clock, a laptop, and two black, leather-bound books. His fingers tapped the cover of one of them while he watched. He stared intently into the television, apparently deep in thought. Once it was over, he picked up the phone and called his secretary.
“Yes, sir?”
“Mary, could you call my driver and have him pick me in the garage in five minutes?”
“Certainly, sir. Where would you like to go?”
“Don’t bother, I’ll tell him myself. And call Mr. Wilson from down the hall, tell him to call me as soon as possible.”
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