This story is by Diana Bean and was part of our 2020 Summer Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.
Shandi woke up to the sun peeking over the trees.
“Ugh! Is it morning already?” She said to herself. “What should I do today? I guess the same thing I do every day since I have been on this island alone.”
Shandi has been on the island for about two months now. She decided two months ago, she needed to get away. She needed time to herself to reflect on her life. Shandi is forty-five years old. She has never been married and has no children. Both of her parents have passed and she is the only child. She took leave from work and hopped on a boat to take a trip. The plan was for her to only be gone for one month. The boat she was on stopped at this beautiful island. She didn’t know why because it was not a scheduled stop. Shandi got off the boat anyway to explore the island. Next thing she knew, she was stranded here. The boat had left without her. There was a lighthouse there, but nobody lived on the island.
The island looked like it had been abandoned for a long time. The lighthouse didn’t even work anymore. Shandi has been living in the lighthouse for the past two months. She has done what she could to fix it up with what little resources she has but hasn’t been able to fix the light in the lighthouse. Her cellphone was left at home so no one could contact her, and she couldn’t contact anyone.
Shandi got up to start her day. She went outside and got in the water to somewhat get clean.
“Today will be the day.” She said as she was cleaning herself up. “Today will be the day that I get rescued by my handsome prince.” Shandi frowns. “Oh who am I kidding? This is no fairy tale and there aren’t any knights in shining armor or princes to save a damsel in distress.”
Shandi walked out of the water and took her morning walk around the island. Well not the whole island of course.
“Maybe today will be the day, I take a walk to the other side of the island to see what is over there. I have been on this island for two months and have never been to the other side yet.”
After her walk, Shandi sat down, leaned against the lighthouse and started drawing. Luckily, Shandi always carried a small backpack with a sketchpad and notebook in it so she can draw or write when the mood strikes. That is what has kept her sane these past two months.
“What can I draw today?” She asked herself as she looked around the island for some ideas. “I can draw a boat. Apparently that is the only way I will ever see one again.”
Shandi believes no one is looking for her since she didn’t have any family. She stayed busy with work so she didn’t really talk to her friends much, and she never told anyone where she was going. And work has probably already replaced her.
Shandi sat there against the lighthouse and started drawing a boat. She pictured the boat she had been on in her mind and that is what she drew. After she was done, she held it up toward the water and pretended the boat was out there waiting on her. She smiled while she was staring at the drawing. She frowned as she lowered the sketch pad back down to her lap. She sat there and stared at the picture she drew.
“Oh how I wish there was really a boat out there so I could go home.”
Shandi looked up from her sketchpad and looked out on the water. As her eyes started adjusting to the distance, she thought she saw a boat. She stood up and shaded her eyes from the sun.
“Is that really a boat or is it just a mirage?”
She walked closer to the water.
“It is a boat! Oh my gosh! I’m going to finally be saved!” She started yelling and waving her arms to try to get their attention.
“Hey! Over here! I’m over here! Please come and save me! I want to go home! Help! Please!”
She kept waving and yelling then she started jumping up and down. Nothing got their attention. The boat was gone. She just fell to the ground and started sobbing.
“Please someone help me. Please, God, can you send a boat for me? I don’t know how much longer I can stand this.”
Shandi just laid there and sobbed for at least fifteen minutes. She really wanted that boat to see her so she could go home. The rest of the day, she tried to think of different ways she could get the boat to see her next time one came through, if there was a next time.
“If only I had a mirror, I could reflect it off the sun and maybe get someone’s attention that is on the boat.”
Shandi decided to look around the lighthouse to see if she could find something she could use as a mirror.
“There has to be places in this lighthouse I haven’t looked.”
Shandi looked all over the lighthouse for a mirror or something she can reflect the sunlight off of. She searched and searched. She was just about to give up when she felt a cool breeze coming from the wall.
“Where did that come from? There is no door or window here.”
Shandi felt around the wall trying to find an opening or a way to open whatever is there. After about a couple minutes of searching, she ran her hand over a button. She pushed it and a door opened up.
“How did I not see this before?”
Shandi walks through the doorway.
“What is this place? Why is it here?”
It was a secret bedroom. There was a bed in one corner of the room and a dresser along the wall across from the bed. The dresser has a big mirror on top of it.
“This is what I need but it is too big for me to carry.”
Shandi looked around the room for a smaller mirror. She opened each and every drawer. She could not find a smaller mirror.
“The only thing I can do now is either take that big mirror and take a piece of it. Guess my luck can’t get any worse, can it?”
So Shandi looked around for something to throw at the mirror. She found a brick and threw it at the mirror. It didn’t break.
“Maybe I didn’t throw it hard enough.”
She picked it up again and threw it harder at the mirror. It still didn’t break.
“What the…? Is the mirror made of plexi-glass or something? Why won’t it break?”
Shandi tried to get the mirror off the dresser but she didn’t have the tools to do it with.
“What am I going to do now?”
It was starting to get dark.
“I better get some sleep. I will try to figure something else out tomorrow. Maybe I will walk the island and see what I can find.”
The next morning after her bath, Shandi decided to go for a longer walk.
“It’s time to walk to the other side of the island to see what is over there. Maybe I can find something over there to reflect the sun.”
Shandi grabbed her bag with her sketchpad and notebook in it and headed off. Shandi didn’t realize how big the island was until she started walking to the other side. It took her half the day just to walk half the length of the island or at least she thinks it was half the length.
“I hope I get to the other side before it gets dark and there is shelter over there. I will wait until the next day to walk back to the lighthouse.”
Shandi kept walking. After a long walk, she thought she heard people.
“That is not possible or is it?”
Shandi started walking a little faster. When she got to the clearing, she saw a resort with so many people enjoying themselves. She was shocked. She even passed out from the shock. When she woke up, she was home in her own bed.
Leave a Reply