"Her & The Hermit"

"Her & the Hermit"

NOTE:​

Another beautiful day in Paradise. Paradise, I muse, drawing a deep breath of salty air and looking out upon the Pacific from high atop the cliffs of South Hill. It's only Paradise, I think -- for the thousandth time -- because it's all mine.

I look down to the dolphins splashing about in the sea ... and see ... No ... it can't be. No! It can't be!

I know the South Hill trail like the back of my hand, and despite having to descend one hundred and fifty feet of rugged, rocky terrain, then run across a quarter mile of sometimes dry and loose, sometimes wet and hard packed sand, I am standing in the middle of the Sunset Beach looking out onto the coral filled waters in less than three minutes.

As my breathing slowly returns to me, I search the surface for the person I thought I spied in the blue water beyond the reef. Nothing. No one. You're seeing things, I think. I laugh, recalling tales of how people stranded on deserted islands very often go insane, assuming they remain alive long enough to do so.

I don't have those fears, of going insane or dying either. I'm not stranded here. I am here by choice, and I am very happy to be all alone. You didn't see anyone, I tell myself. You're all alone. As it should be.

What I can't know is that I actually did see someone, a body, but in the three minutes that it took me to get to the shore, the corpse -- which had been bobbing and sinking and bobbing again over the past 16 hours -- had once again sank below the surface. It would never rise again.

I turn and head up the beach toward my Home. It's not much, just a small hut a few yards off the beach. But it's comfortable, and out in front of it, I have constructed a small dock from which I can watch the sun set. This time of the year, when the winds are a bit higher than normal, I pull out the wind breaks simply to make myself a bit more comfortable. I may be a hermit on a deserted island, but I'm not a idiot or glutton for punishment.

I stop suddenly.

I stare ... but I can't believe what I'm seeing...


Any other man living alone as I was, for as long as I had been, likely would have thought Oh God, you miracle worker ... thank you, thank you, thank you.

My reaction, though, is a bit different, as I look to the beautiful woman, wrapped in one of my wind breaks, and say, "Go away!"


For more about me, see the first paragraph of this link.

The basic story is that while on a cruise in the South Pacific with your lover -- new of old affair, your choice -- the yacht suddenly grounds on a reef and sinks. In the dark of night with nothing but a life jacket clutched in in your arms, you go overboard. The next day, I find you on the dock in the lagoon of my private little island. I am here for solitude and don't want company. Despite this, and despite your reluctance to be here, eventually we begin to be civil to one another, to actually enjoy being in one another's company, and -- ultimately -- become lovers.