Dun Dah....Dun Dah... Dundahdundah..

Dear Frolicking Kangaroos,

I think I wrote this one shortly after reading "The Life of Pi" and reading a news story about some fisherman stuck in a giant icebox at sea.

Aye Mateys!


"Mutiny on the Icebox"

"We're going east! I've had enough of this! We're going east!"

I blink the sleep from my eyes. The sea spray has formed a thin layer of dried salt on my sunburned face and it crackles uncomfortably. The blazing sun momentarily blinds me and I have to shut my eyes again.

"East! East! East!" The voice flirts with madness.

I open my eyes and see a bearded man standing over me and pointing a shaking finger. For a moment, my scrambled mind thinks that we have been boarded by pirates, but the man has no eye patch, no parrot on his shoulder, and no blunderbuss at his side. It is only Tim.

"Calm down," I say.

"East! We have to go east!"

Our fishing boat was overturned in a storm and the only seaworthy vessel left in the wreckage was the icebox. It smells of fish and is just big enough enough for two people with a little legroom to spare. After Tim and I recovered from the freezing waters and returned some of the icebox's existing occupants to the sea, we decided that the best plan of action was to steer towards a buoy we saw in the distance. Tim remembered our boat passing it and since we were traveling east at the time, we surmised that we were going west. In the daytime, we were able to guide ourselves by the sun's position, but we didn't know how to read the stars at night, even as they shined so brightly.

"East!" He is still pointing at me.

Tim is normally very mild-mannered, but a week and a half stranded at sea can do things to a man, and I fear his mind has gone for a temporary sabbatical. The raw fish might not have helped either. I prop myself up, causing the icebox to shift. The water in our rain collectors sloshes around and Tim falls into a sitting position.

"East," he says, but with less conviction, his voice less excited.

"What is it, Tim?"

"We've been going west for days and we've seen nothing. Nothing. We need to change direction."

"Who knows where we are," I say. "We could be anywhere. We could have circled all the way back around during the night. Even if we're sure we've been going west, going east would just mean backtracking for a week and a half. Let's just wait, hope that the search and rescue crew will find us."

"We should go east," says Tim stubbornly.

"Fine," I say with a sigh. A week and a half stranded at sea can test friendships and I would rather placate him than hear him go on anymore.

The sun is still baking us straight overhead as he searches our panoramic view of the horizon.

"Which way is east?" he asks.

I go back to sleep, wondering how far Tim would have to slip into dementia before it was morally acceptable for me to throw him overboard.