Isle of Man
Can men and women, poisoned by modern culture, re-learn how to love each other when survival hangs in the balance?
Image courtesy of DALL-E3XLv2
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Head in the Clouds
Chapter 2: Sudden Stop at the Bottom
Chapter 3: Bringing Home the Bacon
Chapter 4: Free Real Estate
Chapter 5: Love Boat
Chapter 6: The Others
Chapter 7: Boundary Waters
Chapter 8: The Morning After
Chapter 9: Standoff
Chapter 10: Unity
Chapter 11: Escape Velocity
Chapter 1: Head in the Clouds
“Why don’t men approach me in public anymore?” the frighteningly symmetrical, makeup-plastered talking head on Tiktok wondered. “Shoot your shot, fellas! Don’t let romance die!” I glanced up from my phone, having just stepped off the airport shuttle.
There, idly waiting for a uniformed boy aged perhaps eighteen to finish loading her luggage onto a cart, stood a vision of beauty. Turquoise, shoulder-length hair poured out from beneath her floppy sun hat. Her fashion sense closely aligned with my own, except for the expensive looking handbag.
Real beauty, of the natural, everyday variety. Save for the dye job, anyway. At least not the perfectly sculpted, synthetic Tiktok doll now repeating on my phone as I held it limply at my side. A visible fupa and muffin top, but I’ve never minded either. As the Bible says, “The bigger the fupa, the sweeter the chalupa.”
All simply to say that she came off as the quintessential city sweetheart. The type I might’ve met at work, had I not been fired a week ago. I carefully weighed whether to say anything. “Shoot your shot” urged the influencer again, ‘til I muted my phone. I “shoot my shot” every ten to twelve months, as that’s about how long it takes me to rebuild my confidence between attempts.
One would think I’d have given up, single for the past seven years, but if I did that I may as well lay down and die. I stand at the front of a long line of successful pairings, stretching into my ancestral history, back to the earliest form of life. Surely I’d be letting them all down, and would forever wonder what might’ve been, if I didn’t at least try.
So I mustered my courage, legs trembling, heart fluttering, and approached her. She was, by this time, on her way to the terminal. I couldn’t see her expression when she noticed me, eyes hidden behind big, fashionable sunglasses, not that it would’ve told me anything. She didn’t turn her body to face me. Barely did she turn her head.
Neither did she stop walking, as I came up alongside her. I’ve since learned these were signs of disinterest, according to my autism support group chat. Might’ve saved me some embarrassment. I extended my business card her way. “Would you like my card?”
Her face scrunched up as if I’d smeared dog shit beneath her nose. I knew, at least, what that meant. Too late by far to abort, however. “What for?” I shrugged, still walking beside her. “It has my contact info.” Not even stopping to do so, she took it from me, then ripped it into pieces. They scattered at my feet, raining down like the flaming wreckage of my hope.
“I can’t stand this shit. I’m just here to catch a flight! Women don’t owe you conversation!” Voice shaking, I pointed out that I never expected conversation. That was the point of the card, she could’ve contacted me later if she wished simply by accepting it, without requiring any dialogue. “You could also throw it away. Ideally not in front of me, though.”
She tapped her sunglasses. I noticed, much too late, that they were the sort with cameras built in. A tiny light turned green, briefly. With that, she indignantly hurried on her way, peering over her shoulder only to call out “Don’t follow me.”
Onlookers who overheard the incident snickered, some whispering to their partners, one recording it on his phone. It brought to mind the time I accepted a birthday invitation from a girl at school, only for her friends to photograph my heartbreak on arrival, as she revealed it was a prank.
I’m no longer that boy, of course. Such things happen, no reason to get too busted up over it. I passed her on my way through security, as the minimum wage helper monkey loaded her mountain of luggage onto the x-ray machine’s conveyor belt. I carefully got in line for the machine furthest from hers.
To my horror, and doubtless hers too, we arrived at the same terminal…having booked the same flight. Mortified, I sought out the furthest seat in the waiting area, as the plane would load in scheduled groups anyhow. To pass the time, I checked NearBae, a proximity based social app.
Scrolling initially revealed nothing interesting, until I recognized her. No mistaking those sunglasses, even in the thumbnail sized profile picture. Expanding it confirmed my fears. Her most recent post featured a photo of me, flustered and covered in ripped up bits of the card I offered.
“Look out for this creep if you’re at the airport today!” read the post. The comments beneath it, from her girlfriends, all speculated ruthlessly about me. “He looks like a child molester” one wrote. “You should check his face against the sex offender registry.” The others mostly ridiculed my clothing and hair. My wardrobe does need an update, I suppose.
That’s what I get for taking advice I heard on Tiktok, I thought. Scrolling through other recent posts of hers, I found several where she’d set up a camera at the gym to record her workouts, catching various men looking at her. “It’s all so tiresome. Like a bunch of animals, they just can’t keep their ravenous eyes off my perfect body”, followed by the “malegaze” hashtag.
It felt somewhat unreasonable to expect that members of the same gym may not so much as look in her direction. As she shared only stills, there wasn’t any indication of how long their eyes lingered. Something about the royal inflection of the post, that peasants should avert their gaze in her presence, irritated me.
Then again, our recent altercation probably did bias my perception. I’ve never been adept at putting myself in anyone else’s shoes, but tried imagining how I might feel if our roles were reversed. I spend a lot of time at the gym after all, but have never cared to check whether anyone’s watching me. Nor have I ever recorded my workouts to post on socials.
Even imagining particularly unattractive women ogling me failed to arouse any degree of contempt. I’m just not in the habit of viewing myself in that way. For someone like me, it felt like a good problem to have. Complaining about being admired and desired seemed like either a humble brag, or a profoundly out of touch act of unexamined privilege.
When my group was called out, I lugged my travel backpack up to the counter, where a uniformed woman scanned my ticket. Pleasant enough, but then she’s paid to be. I thought back to the comments under my photo, and closely studied the woman’s face. Might she be thinking the same? I put it out of my mind as I traversed the aerobridge.
I actually enjoy flying, for the most part. Aviation is my principal special interest, so the wonder of flight never diminishes for me. I’ve long felt kinship with Alberto Sans DuMont for that reason, an early airship pioneer, and wished he were alive to witness modern airliners.
A romantic and a dreamer, he committed suicide when airships were weaponized during World War 1. To him, flying machines were objects of whimsy, beauty and the realization of man’s oldest dream. To see them turned into tools of war absolutely devastated the poor fellow.
As a boy, I kept that whimsy alive by imagining the plane I was on as a spacecraft bound for the Moon. My immersion heightened by stars sparkling against a black sky, glimpsed through windows, on the rare occasion my family flew someplace after dark.
Seating proved undignified as ever. I’ve read of plans to cram passengers even more closely together, as if we’re not already packed in like sardines. Even what now passes for first class is just a slightly nicer seat with leg room, unless one’s flying to the Emirates or someplace similar.
My stomach dropped as I came face to face with her, yet again. Her face contorted in what I could only assume was severe displeasure, hurriedly checking her ticket. “B11.” Not inclined to make eye contact anyway, I looked at my feet, mumbling “A11”.
She heaved out a loud, disgusted sigh. “Ew! For fuck’s sake. Trade with somebody.” I protested that I bought the seat that I bought, and would not be guaranteed a window seat should I relocate. She sighed again, voice dripping with disdain as she called a flight attendant over.
“I don’t feel safe being seated next to this man”. The attendant asked why. “I shouldn’t have to justify it, he just gives me bad vibes.” The attendant, a pretty young black woman in her early twenties, glanced at me before offering some kind of printed slip. “It’s partial comp for your ticket cost. This will be easier on everyone if you cooperate.”
I obliged, soon seated instead next to an emergency exit. Mercifully, it happened to also be a window seat, such that I at least didn’t miss out on the view. It wasn’t the sky, or landscape below, which interested me…but the engine, a LEAP-1B. Used across the 737 line, a marvelously complex feat of engineering which everyone around me took for granted.
A stately, serious looking stewardess ran us through the pre-flight routine. First, pointing out emergency exits and their attendant responsibilities for anyone seated where I was. Then, she demonstrated the EPOS system that would deploy from a compartment in the overhead console, should cabin pressure fall below the safe threshold during flight.
A24…not A11…It felt like sandpaper on my brain that I was forced to deviate from my travel itinerary, however slightly. I first flew alone only a few years ago, and while I still love it, the process hasn’t gotten much easier. Lots of little things have to go right.
I must be up in time for the shuttle. It will be packed with people I don’t know, strange faces and smells. Then there’s the invasive contact with TSA, having my belongings rummaged through, and so on. All over and done with now, I put the whole unpleasant business out of my mind and prepared myself for takeoff. Despite my age, still inwardly counting down to blast-off.
The cabin lurched, sharp acceleration pushing me back in my seat! Exciting, exciting! I fidgeted with my keys and tapped my foot, noting the itchy texture of the seat fabric and frequency at which overhead lights were strobing. Glancing out the window, I watched with fascination as the main flaps tilted upwards, ailerons as yet unmoving. As I often do during takeoff, I silently wished I’d never seen Final Destination.
But as it always has, takeoff went off without a hitch. Now the ailerons tilted as the plane banked away from the airport, runways shrinking rapidly below. Mood fully restored, I smiled ear to ear when we rose above the cloud layer. Sailing, at last, that fluffy white sea.
When the captain notified us that we could turn our personal devices back on, I connected to the in-flight wifi. To check whether the list of accusations against me had grown, initially. But as I scrolled through her timeline, I noticed her relationship status changed recently.
“Situationship ended with Rhett Parker.” I checked Rhett’s profile. A stunningly gorgeous male specimen, I marveled that she was ever in a relationship with him. Or a…”situationship?” The span of years suggested it lasted for the better part of a decade. Why didn’t they marry, in all that time?
I discovered the answer by browsing the long list of attractive girls following him. All of their profiles said “In a situationship with Rhett Parker”. The picture grew slightly clearer for me. Clearer still when I read her first post, following their breakup. “Men are TRASH”, it proclaimed.
The post had several hundred likes, hearts and crying emojis just under it, as well as concerned replies from friends asking what happened. She was cagey about the specifics, but complained that there are “no good men willing to commit”. Could she really mean Rhett?
Did she…imagine herself his equal? Because he slept with her? Maybe she thought, with one foot in the bedroom door, his feelings for her might blossom over time. It seemed to me an impressive degree of delusion, and an astonishing reason to condemn men on the whole.
Again I tried to empathize. Again, I was unable to imagine myself in her position, as the female equivalent of Rhett is unattainable to me. Not just for one night stands, but even simply for public conversation. Were I to attempt such a thing, I might be pepper sprayed, then further pilloried on NearBae.
I did my best to feel bad anyway. A human being’s in pain, even if I can’t relate to that pain. One of many workarounds my therapist devised with me. A woman herself, not bad looking, I wondered for the first time how many men like Rhett might be in her life.
Namely, whether they might’ve hurt her, and how that could indirectly affect the way she thinks about her male patients. Unwilling to blame the object of her one-sided devotion, redirecting that anger instead into a punching bag filled with half of Earth’s population.
Chapter 2: Sudden Stop at the Bottom
I was the first to notice something wrong. Not for any special power of observation, just that flight is mundane to nearly everybody, so only my eyes were pointed at the engine when pieces started coming off. Friends and family jokingly warned me about this airline, in the news as of late for cutting some inadvisable corners.
I laughed it off until, when I tried to adjust the window’s sliding sunshade, it came loose in my hands. Upon summoning an attendant, it was the same one who relocated me. She wrinkled her nose. “You again. What now?” I pointed to the plastic oval in my hand, then to the window. “The same thing’s happening to the engine.”
Her eyes widened slightly and she tensed up. “That’s…normal. Happens sometimes…nothing to worry about.” I doubted that very much, given the haste with which she hurried to the cockpit, presumably to notify the captain.
I did my best to relax under the circumstances, watching the in-flight movie. It was about a vampire and a werewolf, both eye-wateringly handsome, fighting over a typical suburban white girl. I tuned it out halfway in, directing my attention instead to the information packet tucked into the seat back pocket in front of me.
“Inclusive at every level!” it boasted, bearing a group photo of black women on the cover. “Diversity is our number one concern!” I flipped through the pages, looking for diversity. There wasn’t any. Every single pilot, stewardess, baggage handler…even the engineers were smiling black women. The mechanic held her wrench backwards. The engineer’s soldering iron was not plugged into anything.
A bead of sweat trickled down from my hairline, and nausea took hold. I surprised myself that way, so rarely do I get airsick. Outside, a thin metal ring hung loose from the engine, flailing about in the wind. Then the engine stopped. Cabin lights flickered, then went dark. A few people screamed until the captain’s voice returned.
“Remain calm everyone. There’s been an…interruption of full aircraft functionality. Per emergency protocol, we will not be continuing on to the planned destination. Your tickets will be refunded after landing at the nearest airport prepared to receive us.”
Many groaned. I nervously gripped the armrests, once more recalling Final Destination. Figures I would die this way, killed by the object of my own lifelong fascination. Death seemed, at least, a uniquely economical solution to my recent job loss. No rent, no groceries, no utility or insurance bills. Until now, I gave consideration to digging a burrow on public land.
But we didn’t even make it back over land. By this time quite far out to sea, the captain announced he would be forced to attempt a water landing when the other engine failed. The screaming picked back up, this time refusing to abate.
The elderly Muslim man seated beside me unbuckled his seatbelt, kneeling in the aisle, ignoring the stewardess as she urged him to return to his seat. I briefly thought about how dying would feel in the moment of impact. Would there be time to witness the fuselage ahead of my row, rapidly crumpling towards us? Or would I be alive one second, then dead the next? Lights out, quick and painless…?
Neither prospect offered much comfort as a woman climbed into the open seat next to me, having stepped over the praying man as he continued to prostrate himself. When I looked over, I was shocked to see the turquoise-haired girl from before. She shouted at me over the screaming and alarms, asking whether I knew how to open the emergency hatch.
Now that she addressed me directly, I felt I must certainly have her implicit permission to answer, assuring her I knew. It was all she cared to hear from me, buckling herself in as a pair of attendants wrestled with the frantic elderly man, still imploring God to right the plane.
The three of them fell forwards, tumbling down the aisle as the plane entered a nose dive. Shuddering and groaning from structural stress, only now did the air masks deploy. I grabbed mine and put it on, as did her highness.
I wished I could’ve said something poetic right then. Not to her, specifically, she was just handy. I wanted to share a final moment of mutual humanity with somebody, before the end came. But stuck as I was with her, I felt I would soon die feeling more alone than if the seat had been empty.
I must’ve blacked out on impact, as I awoke to a fast-flooding cabin. The only one awake, I grabbed the release lever on the emergency hatch, and yanked with all my strength. The plane sank at an angle, such that the hatch was mostly out of water, else it would’ve been pinned shut.
That didn’t help for long. Once the hatch popped open, throwing up spray as the waves rolled over it, frigid saltwater began to rush in. Only the lowest bound of the open hatch dipped below the waterline, but it was enough to greatly accelerate sinking. Maybe I ought to be ashamed to admit that I retrieved my backpack from beneath the seat first.
If I left it, there might’ve been time to rescue somebody else. I certainly would’ve preferred to rescue anybody else. By that point, the rear of the cabin was submerged up to row 22. Her highness hung limp from her seatbelt, which I unfastened. Out cold, in the still-darkened cabin, she slumped to one side.
I whispered profuse apologies to everyone else in that sinking plane as I escaped with her slung over my shoulder. The inflatable slide deployed when the emergency hatch opened, which I crawled onto. Glad to be unburdened, I then rolled her onto her back. Behind us, the nose of the plane was the last to sink beneath the frothing surface of the ocean.
I performed CPR, best I could from memory. After a few pumps of her sternum, she vomited up water. I didn’t see her swallow that much, I thought I kept her mostly above the surface on our way out. She wasn’t in any condition to scold me though, at least until she awoke.
Her eyelids fluttered, then opened narrowly. She held up one hand to shield her eyes from the mid-day sun. As soon as she recognized me, she screamed, pushing me away. “DON’T TOUCH ME!” She cried. I protested that I was just administering CPR. “I don’t care!” came her rebuke, “I didn’t say you could fucking put your hands on me!”
I apologized, crawling to the far side of the raft, sensing she might wish to be alone for the moment. “...Where’s my bag?” I didn’t reply, unsure whether she meant for me to, until she repeated the question. “I had a seven thousand dollar Louis Vitton handbag with me! Did you grab it before the plane sank??”
I confessed that it slipped my mind. “Oh, but you remembered yours” she growled, gesturing in frustration to my travel backpack. Now sheepish, I admitted I might’ve confused my priorities in all the panic. “It’s a solar backpack. Might come in handy, if being dunked in the ocean didn’t ruin it.”
She muttered bitterly that her bag cost two paychecks. “Wow. What’s it do?” She cocked her head. “What do you mean, what does it do?” I asked if it was also solar, or if not, what features it had to justify the steep cost. Mostly just glad she was talking, after suffering such a shock.
“Well, it…it holds a bunch. It’s very well made. Luis Vitton bags appreciate in value…it’s an investment, really. I can’t believe your dumb ass let it sink with the plane.” I reminded her that, assuming a full flight, 208 people just drowned. “I know that!” she snapped. “You could’ve grabbed my bag, is all. Wouldn’t have taken but a second.”
She sat facing away from me, hugging her knees to her chest, while the sun dried her clothes. Her big floppy hat, at least, came in handy. We drifted like that for interminable hours, neither one speaking to the other, until I sighted the island.
When first I tried to get her attention, she ignored me. I raised my voice, and repeated myself. “There’s a landmass.” She tipped the rim of her sun hat, peering out from beneath it. “Thank god. I thought I might die here, with you.” Another of many small barbs she didn’t realize stung me. Or if she did, it wasn’t of any concern.
I waited til the raft was nearly to shore before sliding over the edge into the rising tide. I rolled my pant legs up to my knees beforehand, to no avail, as the water was still deeper than expected. Soaked up to my waist, I didn’t much mind on account of how warm the air was.
I instructed her to help me pull the raft onshore. Instead, as soon as she felt safe stepping off it, she booked it. I blinked in confusion, watching her recede into the distance, kicking up sand as she went. Maybe guessing that if she followed the shoreline, she’d eventually come upon a resort?
Must not have been one, as she begrudgingly returned about an hour later. Now sunburnt and tired, she asked if I had any lotion in my bag. I inquired whether she would help me fold up the now deflated raft. “I didn’t mention that” she groused, “I just want some sunscreen.”
I fished around in my bag and found some, then set about applying it to my face and arms. “Hey!” she protested, “that’s for me!” I screwed the cap back on and returned it to my bag. “It’s for people who help fold up the raft.” She stamped one foot in the sand. “I was busy!”
I placed my bag atop the folded up yellow rubber rectangle, as well as a few stones, lest wind carry it off. “Yeah, busy looking for a resort. Did you find one?” She sighed and shook her head. I folded my arms. “Look, I don’t wanna be here any more than you, but we’re in a life or death situation. It would behoove you to cooperate.”
She asked if that meant building a shelter. I shook my head. “First things first, the rule of threes.” When she inquired what that might be, I rattled them off. “Humans can survive three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food.”
She inhaled performatively. “Plenty of air, obviously.” I reminded her of the poor souls still strapped into their seats, now at the bottom of the ocean. “With my fucking handbag! So, do we look for water?” I nodded. “That’s right. Food can wait. We’ll die of thirst much sooner than we’ll starve.” I didn’t mean to sound so bleak, but then, neither was there any sense in sugar coating it.
I assigned her to searching for bottles along the shore, in which to keep fresh water, should I find any. She whined that it was a lot of walking, on feet already tired. “From trying to escape me, right?” She didn’t answer. “What do I call you, anyway? My name’s Matthew.”
She appeared reluctant to answer. I threw up my hands. “Seriously? We’re literally the only two people on this island, by the looks of it. I didn’t ask for your phone number! If you don’t give me a name, I’ll just call you Snarge.”
Amused, she inquired what it meant. I explained it refers to the gore that clogs up a jet engine, when a goose flies into it. She waved dismissively. “No need to be crass. Call me Patricia.” It wasn’t much, but I took it as an encouraging step.
“Alright Patricia. You’ve got the sun hat. I’ll let you keep the lotion, if you put in a little effort to search for bottles.” She agreed to that arrangement, whereupon I set off for the treeline. Judging by the flora, our plane went down somewhere in the tropics. Wind jostled the overhead jungle canopy, casting shadows which danced over the underbrush.
The sun sat eight fingers above the horizon when I, at last, stumbled across a stream. I followed it to its source, a freshwater spring, but did not yet drink of it. Instead I ran it through my Sawyer, and filled the hydration pouch in my backpack. In the process, I used some of the fresh water to scrub its electrical contacts, lest salt corrode them.
With that taken care of, I grabbed a rock and split with another. On my way back to shore, I used the sharp edge to mark tree trunks, so I could find the spring more easily next time. Once back on the beach, I tested out my bag’s solar array.
My phone didn’t respond for the better part of a minute when I plugged it into the panels. Supposedly water resistant to a depth of ten meters, the brief immersion before I climbed onto the raft must’ve been enough for seawater to seep in.
Leaving it face down in the sun inexplicably fixed whatever was wrong. Evaporation, desiccating properties of sand, or an island miracle. I didn’t care which, only that there now existed a possible means of calling for help.
I expected zero bars for 5G, but I wasn’t getting anything on LTE either...fuck. I put it into Emergency SOS mode, shutting off the screen to conserve juice. I then left it plugged into the backpack, which I propped up on the beach, facing East. Not much good to me with daylight dwindling, but it would get blasted come morning.
I found Patricia lounging on a towel, in a bikini. Also solar charging, one assumes. “Found any bottles?” I inquired. “You’re standing in my light” she complained. I again asked if any bottles turned up in her search. “Oh yeah, that. No, no bottles.” Exasperated, I asked where she got the towel and bikini.
“Off a skeleton. I think anyway, there were bones. The towel was in a ratty old duffel bag.” I asked if she at least brought back the duffel bag. Patricia peered up at me from beneath the rim of her sun hat, as if I was asking the dumbest questions ever to escape human lips. “Obviously not. I already got what I wanted from it.”
I gathered some sticks, and with a titanium fire starter from my backpack, made a campfire on the beach. The best shelter I managed to make that first night was nothing more than the deflated raft, draped over a thick branch, propped up on two others.
Crude but serviceable, especially with the fire so close by. With a slight wind picking up, I was glad to have it as night fell, until Patricia informed me of our sleeping arrangements. “Get out” she instructed, hands on her hips.
I stared up at her from within the makeshift tent, uncomprehending. “I beg your pardon?” She kicked sand on me. “I need to sleep in there, and I don’t feel safe sharing it with you.” I suggested she sleep outside it, then.
She balked at the notion. “Literally I just survived a traumatic event! The barest decency you could show me is to let me sleep in there!” I refused, but offered to share some of the water I’d just boiled over the fire.
She kicked it over, and I scrambled to keep the pot upright, lest the water soak into the sand. Still hot from the fire, the little camping pot burnt my hands. “It’s MY SHELTER” I shouted. “I’m the one who made it! I gathered the sticks, I put it together, I made the fire and I brought back the water you just wasted. You’re lucky I already drank my fill.”
She folded her arms against her chest. “Or what? You think you’re hot shit for draping some rubber over a branch. There’s probably a million women in the world who could build a better shelter than you did.”
I shrugged. “No doubt that’s true. By all means bring them here, I’d prefer their company to yours. So far you’ve done fuck all but complain.” Patricia reminded me that while I was in the jungle gathering sticks, she was finding bottles. “You were sunbathing!” I yelled, to which she replied “I was watching for ships! Un-fucking-believable. I deserve way better than this.”
I challenged her on it. “Why do you deserve anything? You didn’t even do the single, easy thing I asked you to.” She pointedly asked whether I thought I was in charge of her simply because I’m a man. I facepalmed. “It’s not about that. It’s about efficient delegation of labor. But fine, you take the tent tonight.”