THE ISLAND IN THE SEAS.

THE ISLAND IN THE SEAS.

A Story by Peter Rogerson
"

How would we feel if the land we stood on started to float away?

"


Jimmy Doltrice had lived on the island all his life, and loved it - until, that is, the day it sailed away.

It wasn't the smallest of islands, but, then again, it wasn't the largest. Yet it quite comfortably accommodated a population of a few thousand souls. It would never enter the category of teensy islands, never be described as a tropical paradise and never have an international airport.

Jimmy loved the place. He worked at the mousetrap factory (the island was a major player in the mousetrap industry and even transported its wares as far afield as China " mousetraps of the humane variety, of course, in which the naughty mice were imprisoned, given time to pray for forgiveness before being dispatched by the mousetrap owner to whatever Paradise mouse philosophy had devised over the years).

In the evenings he courted Rosa, and some of the games they played under a giant harvest moon might even be considered risqué by the more religiously devoted members of some congregations. But they enjoyed their games, and that's all that really mattered, seeing as they took appropriate precautions.

Jimmy's hobby was pot-holing. He loved it and even took Rosa with him on Sundays, when they could smooch in subterranean pleasure-domes and offer verbal sacrifices to the deity of carnal love. Oh, Jimmy could be a naughty boy, all right!

I have observed,” he said to Rosa, changing the subject before being called naughty too often, “I have observed that our lovely island where we lovingly follow our ancestors down the path of life is barely attached to anything at all, but is sitting, nice as pie, on one huge pot-hole and only attached to the rest of the world by a few stringy filaments of fragile rock and lots of ocean!”

That is so romantic,” she smooched back at him.

But it could become serious,” he mused.

Kiss me again,” she rejoined.

And he did. Of course he did. Why shouldn't he? After all, he was a resident of an almost perfect island and holding in his arms a certainly perfect woman.

Now, no man is an island and no island is alone on a planet, and Jimmy's planet had continents and oceans and lots and lots of neighbours for just about everyone. There were more countries than you could imagine, and each country was weighed down by huge populations, all of which needed to be kept warm in the winters and travel miles and miles in the summer, for holiday treats and the sun and so on.

The result was predicted a century before it happened.

What with all those people needing (and being greedy for) so much energy, natural balances started to suffer and winds often blew in quite the wrong direction. Scientists explained it by calling it either climate change or global warming according to the linguistic preference of the day. To cut a long story short, Jimmy's island began to get wet via the gift of endless down-pouring of rain in just about every season.

It started one day just as he was on his way to call for Rosa and by the time he arrived at her home (not so far away) he was wishing he'd remembered to take a hat with him.

You poor bedraggled thing,” she smooched, “here, let me take your clothes off you and dry them for you...” And being Jimmy and the romantic sort he let her, and it was only hours later that they remembered that the reason for his nakedness was to dry his clothes. Naughty Jimmy! Naughty Rosa!

And it was still raining when his things were sort of dry.

You can't go home in this rain,” she tickled. “You'll have to wait until it eases off. I would never forgive myself if I let you go out in this dreadful rain and get all wet again. Why, you might catch your death!”

But what would the neighbours say?” he murmured, knowing it didn't matter a toss what anyone said or even thought.

They'd be sympathetic,” she said, looking at him through two huge eyes.

So he stayed the night and next morning, when they awoke exhausted, it was still raining heavier than ever.

You can't leave in this,” she decided, “you can borrow some of my panties while I wash your manly boxers!”

I feel all pervy,” he grinned, in her lacy nearly-nothings.

Where is all this water going?” she asked, not curiously because she couldn't actually care where it went but needing to shake the image of his naked chest from her mind before it sent her insane.

There are drains,” he replied, vaguely.

And there were! A wonderful array of drains, and they all diverted spare water to the honeycomb of passages that Jimmy loved to explore on his days off, and where he took Rosa for a kiss and a cuddle on Sundays.

And unbeknown to anyone the assortment of potholes on which the island sat filled up with water, right to the top so that there were little fountains spewing excess of it into the air, even on top of its highest hill.

Equally unbeknown to anyone the few structures, the intricate lattice-work of ancient rock and stone that was all that was left of the sub-strata got washed away by all that rain (which just wouldn't stop and flowed hither and thither quite wildly) and with a pop and a jerk like a minor earthquake, that wonderful island was set free. It was no longer attatched to any solid part of the planet. It started to float off, which in one way was a good thing because it went out of the run of bad weather that had brought a seemingly endless nightmare of rain.

It became quite famous throughout all the lands on that planet. One year it rocked towards China, and they claimed it as their territory, but it wouldn't stay there and it wobbled across the foaming seas towards America, and they claimed it as their territory. But it was never still long enough for a Presidential party to gather and a flag-pole to be planted.

And it's still out there, somewhere, on the gigantic masses of water called the oceans. A little island bobbing along and purveying, to anyone chancing to cross its wandering path, a fascinating range of humane mouse-traps. Jimmy's got a store on the sea's edge. He stands there with Rosa and a silly grin on his face every time she looks at him and squishes.


© 2016 Peter Rogerson


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Added on February 2, 2016
Last Updated on February 2, 2016
Tags: island, lovers, naked, smooch, rain, weather, climate change

Author

Peter Rogerson
Peter Rogerson

Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom



About
I am 80 years old, but as a single dad with four children that I had sole responsibility for I found myself driving insanity away by writing. At first it was short stories (all lost now, unfortunately.. more..

Writing