June 1 2025

some of the younger ones turned to me, thinking I knew something I know nothing; I do not even know how I got on this beach. A thunderstorm shook me awake in the middle of the night. Crashing and thrashing noises terrified me. I thought it was a mutiny and the captain might have been killed. Said a prayer and went back to sleep wishing I had not heard the commotion. This is day three, and here we sit, looking at the sky, waiting for a rescue plane. There are sixteen of us; I count us every day, to make sure we are all alive. It’s something a school teacher does naturally. We have one checker game; two old men are playing it. They should give it to the kids, but they don’t. I am tired of being here; our food supply is low There are weird banana-like things here, smaller, and tart. We are all sick of eating them. For water we are relying on the salty ocean. I am sick of that too. It has been three days. I write June 1st, 2025 down into the notebook I picked up. It was in the communal pile, and no one else seems to want it. I write a list poem, listing all of the things I want to do when we are rescued. Uh-oh. Here come some talkers. I am sick of them. They take up so much time, saying nothing.