Secret Island: Storytelling Week 2

One lonely morning Ellie was walking around her cottage on her deserted island. She had been there since her ship crashed, and was the sole survivor. She had built a home for herself on this island that only had goats as inhabitants, and had lived for some years. Today she was feeling especially gloomy, even though it was a gorgeous day. She had no one to talk to, no one to share laughter or sadness or joy with. The goats only looked at her then walked away when she tried to talk to them, as if they were unamused by anything she presented to them. From her cottage she could see where her ship had landed, she had pulled most of the bits and pieces ashore. She never could bring herself to do anything actually useful with the wreckage, and that is how she got the idea. She decided to build a raft with the driftwood that was left. It was time for her to leave, and to find some human company.



A week later, Ellie was satisfied with the raft she had built for herself. She had gathered some essentials she thought she would need for her journey, and set off into the bright cheerful sea.



Five days and three nights she had been drifting. Ellie was starting to lose hope of every seeing land again, much less another human being. Her supplies were running low, and only so much rationing would help. In the horizon she saw what looked like a moving bump, she assumed to be another wave rolling in. As the raft drifted closer it became more and more clear that this was not a wave. This was a thing. An enormous thing. Ellie had never seen anything like it. It had tentacles for arms, and three almost human looking heads jutting out from its floating body. It was frightening! Ellie tried her hardest to not be seen, but she was too close, and upon instinct she played dead.



The half octopus, half human seemed to take an interested in her tiny raft, and encircled it between its tentacles. Ellie was trying to remain as still as she could, but she could feel her entire body trembling with fear. Eventually this monster seemed to take pity on her, pushing her raft behind its body, towards what seemed to be more ocean. Ellie was distraught; she would have rather been eaten by the monster than spend another five days at sea! As soon as that thought had left her mind, she felt her raft bump into something, and stop. She had found land! Where did it even come from? Ellie didn’t care. She was too overjoyed with being able to stand up, walk around, and run.



As she calmed herself, she started to wander around, and eventually came to a city. This wasn’t just any city though. Ellie had never seen such beauty! Everything was carved from the most wondrous marble she had ever seen. No one was around though. Working up all of her courage, Ellie entered what seemed to be the central building. It was the grandest of them all; at least twice the size of the other buildings. It has a courtyard with trees and fountains and flowers that Ellie thought she could stay in forever. Pushing open the doors she heard chattering coming from the room to her right, so she ventured there. When she walked into the room, there had to be at least a hundred people in there! They all stopped what they were doing to stare at her. My gods, these were the most beautiful people she had ever seen! Suddenly Ellie felt very self-conscious in her tattered stage. A man approached her and told her she could call him Percy. He seemed baffled that she had managed to find their island, so she gave him the low down on what had happened on her journey. Percy told her he knew of the beast in the ocean, and that the creature was actually their guard. He explained to her that their island was very special, and was supposed to be a hidden secret.



Ellie was overwhelmed, and needed to comprehend what she had just learned about this strange beautiful place she had landed, so Percy took her back out to the garden and sat with her.

Marble Bench
photo by David Dixon

He seemed nice enough to her, but since she hadn’t spoken to anyone in about three years anyone probably would have seemed nice. There was something about him that seemed different than she remembered people to be like though. When Ellie looked at Percy again he got a very serious look on his face. He told her to be calm, but he had to share something with her. Ellie swore to him that she could handle whatever he may throw her way. In one quick sentence Percy blurted out that he was Poseidon’s son, and that all the people she had just seen were also the offspring of gods and goddesses. Ellie was stunned; how had she landed here? Would they let her stay? Did she even want to stay? Putting her jumbled mind at ease, Percy told her that since she had managed to find this island she was welcome to stay as long as she wanted to.





Ellie decided to stay. She did not want to set sail again, and who knows if she would be as lucky to find another island again. The more she hung out with Percy and his friends, the more she felt like this was her home. She had finally found the company she was longing for.

Author's Note: 

This story was based on a passage from The Odyssey. "[E]ach of Scylla’s heads dragged a man writhing towards the rock, as a fisherman on a jutting crag casts his bait to lure small fish, lowers an ox-horn on a long pole into the sea, and catching a fish flings it ashore. There at the entrance to her cave she devoured them, as they shrieked and reached out their hands to me in their last dreadful throes. It was the most pitiable sight of all I saw exploring the pathways of the sea."

I also pulled from a story I read as a kid. I don't remember the name of the book, but it was about a boy who had been kidnapped. He was from a beautiful hidden island, where many strange things happened. I also incorporated the island that was full of goats from another protein of the Odyssey. 

bibliography:

The Odyssey by Homer and translated by Tony Kline.