The Island: Day 1, The Stick

Dreaming. He was a boy again. Six years old. Sitting at the kitchen table, anxiously awaiting the grilled cheese sandwich his mother was making for him. She was smiling at him, and singing "You Are My Sunshine." The sun was streaming in through the window, the birds were chirping. All was right with the world.

That all shattered in an instant. He was startled awake by the sharp, piercing call of some wild bird. Or was it a monkey? He couldn't be sure. He was a city boy and new nothing about animal calls.

Wait. What? Why was he hearing a wild animal call in the first place? He was confused and... wet. Why was he wet? He opened his eyes for the first time and inspected his surroundings. He was on a beach. How had he gotten here? He couldn't remember. He was wearing one shoe. Where had the other one gone? He had no clue.

He sat up to find that he was lying atop what appeared to be a large steamer trunk. He still couldn't remember anything at all, but this was too much for him to handle. Was he some ship-wrecked cliche? And with amnesia to boot. That's just great.

Luckily for him, he washed up near some fruit trees and a decent-sized cave, so food and shelter weren't a problem. But as the hours turned into days, and into weeks, he began to lose his mind. The sun would rise and set, and nothing changed. No people. Nobody to talk to. Just the birds and monkeys to listen to. Madness was settling in, he could feel it.

He was sure he had a life to get back to, people who missed him. His only memory was the dream he had that first day: his mother and grilled cheese. God, he could kill for a grilled cheese right about now! Anything would be better than bananas, coconuts and the occasional small rodent or fish he managed to catch for himself.

But who else was out there? Was his mother even still alive? Was the dream woman even his real mother? For some reason he was vaguely aware of the notion that sometimes "actors" in your dreams will "play" other roles. Like, when you drive up to a sprawling mansion in a dream and you just "know" that it's yours, despite never having seen it before. In the dream he was just a boy, in real life he was man of thirty now. How did he know his age, but nothing else? The mind is funny, he thought to himself. He started pacing. His nerves were beginning to fray. He had been trapped here for six weeks now according to the notches on the tree outside his cave. Six weeks?

"I can remember my age, and grilled cheese, but nothing else?! Not where I'm from, or where I was going. What is my name?"

That thought struck him like thunder, and served to accelerate his restless frustration. It hadn't occurred to him until exactly that moment that he did not know is own name. It hadn't come up. There was nobody here to introduce himself to. Only trees and animals.

"What is my goddamn name!?! Who am I?! I don't even know if I had a girlfriend or not. Are there friends worrying about me? AM I ALL ALONE!?"

"Of course you are not all alone, Daniel. I am here." The voice came from over his shoulder, and startled him so badly he whirled around, tripped over and a rock and went head-over-heals backwards to the ground.

"Who's there!?" He shouted, jumping to his feet.

"Over here." Came the voice again. He looked all around him, and saw nobody. "Down here," came the voice. He looked low at the ground and saw only a tree branch. He was about to dismiss it when he noticed features very similar to a human face on it. He inched closer towards it. The log was small, about four feet long, and a few inches thick.

"That is right, Daniel. I will not hurt you. I am your friend." The voice was soft, and friendly.

"Who... what are you?"

"Well, what do you think I am?"

"I think I'm going crazy, and I'm hearing voices."

"Hmm. Are you so sure I am only in your head?"

"You're a stick, so yeah, I'm pretty fuckin' sure."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Perhaps you should think of me as an extension of yourself then."

"Uh-huh."

"It is, afterall, human nature to be with others, Daniel. It is a human need. Is it so crazy for your mind to fulfill one of your basic needs? I do not think so. Just think of it that way. I am a product of your self-preservation instinct."

Daniel nodded slowly for a second, and then erupted into roars of laughter.

"What is so funny, Daniel?" Asked the stick.

It took him a moment to regain his composure enough to speak, and even when he did he was gasping for breath and chuckling on the odd word or two.

"My own hallucination just logically justified itself to me. And now it wants to know why I find that so funny. Don't you already know what's funny? I mean, you're in my head, right? This is amazing."

"It does not quite work that way, Daniel. Think of it like this; I am, indeed, your own creation, but I am also separate from your consciousness. Imagine that your brain is like a suburban neighborhood. Daniel might live in the first house on the block, with a fence and yard and doors. That's your real estate, if you will. I might live three doors down with my own fence. Separate real estate. Do you see?"

"Yes, I see." He suddenly sobered. "So what house do all my memories live in?"

"Well, if we stick with the metaphor, it is more like they are in a closet of your own house that you locked and cannot find the key too."

"Or better yet, it's like when you "lose" your car keys in your own bedroom. You know they're in there somewhere, but just can't find them."

"Just so."

"...I must have been a psychologist before... Before."

"That seems a reasonable assumption, Daniel."

"Daniel. You keep saying Daniel. How do you know my name?"

"You are making an assumption. How do you know that is actually your name? It very well might be, but it could also be something else."

"Such as?"

"Oh, I do not know. Perhaps it is the name of someone you looked up to. A hero, or somebody strong. Somebody you aspire to be. Perhaps someone from your life in the outside world who you feel would be better suited to survive this ordeal."

"Jesus, I really am crazy."