WOODY PAUL GREY
NOVEL
CHAPTER TWO AWAKENING.
Next day I woke up early in the morning. It wasn`t the cold, or, the rain, that disturbed me. Strange as it may seem, but it was just the air. So fresh and so clean. Actually, never in my life earlier have I ever breathed the kind of one. I got up easily to my feet, as though I hadn`t been swimming in the ocean for nearly a week. It was rather strange. And no matter, how good am I, as a swimmer, but still I`m just a man, not a whale, or, a shark to swim for so long in an open ocean. By the way, I was very lucky, that not a single shark smelled my body, otherwise I wouldn`t be here, on this oddly piece of land.
I walked to the ocean line and jumped into the pink lagoon. The water was cool, just the way I like it. I dived, as deep as I only could, and swam with opened eyes. The water was clear enough to see the bottom of the lagoon. I tried to dive deeper to find and touch it. But it was impossible. Maybe next time.I went up to the surface, lay on my back and totally relaxed for a few minutes. Far away, where the horizon met with the sky, I saw the same wall of mist, fume, or, fog. Sooner or later, I must learn the mystery of that weird phenomenon. Very slowly I returned back to the shore. At the place, where I`d spent the previous night I found a nice breakfast, consisting of some exotic fruits and a few baked fishes. How sweet! Wait a minute! Only now I reminded the ugly figure of an old, hairy man, sitting quietly on the shore so close to me. We didn`t talk much, just stared at each other for a while. And then, I simply fell asleep. So, one good news is that I`m not alone here. I was badly starving and, first and foremost, I needed some food and water. By the way, and there it was too, in a big jug full of life giving drink. I ate everything, that the good soul prepared for me, in a blink of an eye. Then I drank the water up to the last drop. And only after that, I decided to learn the territory where I was supposed to reside for the nearest future. So, in front of me was a beautiful green valley going slowly up to the rocky mountains stretching up to the blue sky. In fact I didn`t see a single tree there. And that's very bad, really very bad.
Leftwards, I suddenly saw my only island-mate getting ready to go fishing on his old boat, I guess. It was a reckless step, on my part, to join the old man on that poor boat. But I didn`t have much of other options. The idea of hanging around this deserted valley wasn` much better either. So, right now,I`m going to get acquainted with the local resident.
I slowly approached the poor man, stretched my hand forward for a friendly handshake, but wasn`t met the same way by the stranger. Maybe, he just didn`t hear me.
-"Hello! How you`re doing here?" - I started the conversation, friendly smiling and trying to be polite.
No reaction, or, a reply, whatsoever.
-"By the way, my name is George, George McLain, to be exact. And who are you, man?" - I touched his shoulder, to show, that I was friendly minded, but his reaction just shocked me totally.
-"M-m-m!" - he yelled loudly, rudely pushing my hand away and angrily showing his teeth. At this moment he looked like a trapped animal, protecting himself from me, a total stranger. For him, I myself, half naked, talking some foreign language, looked weird, as well.
-"Well, buddy! It so happened, that we both appeared to be stuck here, the only people on this, God forgotten piece of land. We do have to find a mutual understanding and help each other to survive. Do you follow me?" - judging by his absolute ignorance of my attempts to make friends, it`s clear that it may take a long while, before we`ll become friends.
To be continued...
22:30 - 23:25 10/01/2018 Ivano-Frankivsk.
