His fingers brush mine, just barely. Just enough to make a connection.
‘Yeah, not everything here is dead in the water,’ I reply.
Lockie bumps my shoulder with his, acknowledging my terrible pun. I bump him back, and then our eyes meet.
As silly as it sounds, I’m glad he’s here. I’m glad I’m not doing this alone.
We stand there, all of us, watching the starfish until it disappears beneath the waves. We’re still silent, but it’s not as suffocating now.
I feel daft, getting a lump in my throat over a starfish, but somehow it feels like a sign. Everything could be okay.
I’m just not sure how exactly yet.
21
We’re under strict instructions from Ozzy today. Find things to help us survive, don’t get into any scrapes that might kill us. Easier said than done.
He pretty much gave us a TED Talk, on all things survival, imparting so much information it inadvertently went in one ear and out of the other.
My two main takeaways, and I think they’ll serve me well, are this: don’t eat anything without getting him to check it first (he mentioned various toxic fruits) and watch out for eels. I will most definitely be watching out for eels.
So it’s just me and Lockie, walking through the jungle, looking for anything that might be useful. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything useful out here, least of all us.
Lockie walks ahead, using a big stick to push things out of the way.
‘In a dream world,’ he begins, pausing to swipe leaves out the way, ‘I want to find a stone pizza oven, and all the ingredients to make pizza. What about you?’
‘An M&S Simply Food,’ I say with a sigh. Now this is my kind of fantasising. ‘A Colin the Caterpillar would really take the edge off right now.’
‘I miss food,’ he replies. ‘Even just, like, the rush of getting a Tesco Meal Deal, getting £9 worth of stuff for like half the price.’
‘I’m so hungry for bread, I’d pay the £9,’ I say with a laugh.
‘I’d even settle for a PlayStation,’ he replies. ‘Just, something to do. I could playRed Dead Redemption 2for days without moving, that would pass the time.’
I laugh at him.
‘You’re sort of living it,’ I remind him.
‘It’s not the same,’ he reassures me. ‘Plus, I don’t have a horse, and if I did, Ozzy would probably try to eat it for the protein.’
He probably would. That’s not a joke.
‘How long before he starts trying to work out which one of us has the most meat on us?’ I reply.
‘I’ve definitely seen him eyeing you up,’ Lockie replies.
Hmm, I wonder what he means by that, there’s a tone I can’t quite put my finger on.
‘There’s higher ground up near the ridge,’ Lockie says. ‘If we climb it, who knows, maybe we’ll be able to see something, or start a fire so that someone can see us? It’s worth a try, right?’
‘And if we fall to our deaths?’ I reply.
‘I mean, you seem more likely to fall than me, but I’ll keep you safe,’ he tells me. ‘So I’m up for it if you are.’
‘I’ve nothing better to do,’ I reply.
The deeper you head into the jungle, the more it feels like it’s swallowing you whole.
