“You heard who Dan’s dating?”
“Nope but I’m sure you’re about to tell me. Pass me a cigarette and I’ll pretend to listen to you gossiping for five minutes.”
“You want the long or short version?”
“I said five minutes, short version, please.”
“Her name’s Tess Jensen, you might’ve heard about her in the news a few years ago; she was stranded on a desert island for over a year before she was rescued due to someone seeing her sign on Google maps.
Anyway, short version it is. Tess and her boyfriend at the time Josh were on this speed boat heading out into open water when it ran out of petrol or had engine issues, whatever. All Josh’s fault cos Tess kept telling him to turn back round but he woudn’t listen and they end up drifting for five days, further out each day until they land on this island. Tess used to be an accountant, got one of these mathematical brains and she quickly does the math and realises that there’s no way the island can sustain both her and Josh, who she loves deeply but being practical there’s no chance of them both survive and the same goes for the chance of rescue. It’s not like when they were at open water because they might have come across a shipping lane and they were catching fish, but now on this island it is looking grim for them.
So Tess makes the hardest decision she’s had to make, she’s got to kill Josh, but there’s no way she could bring herself to do it herself, so she pretends to sprain her ankle so she can sit down and think about ways for Josh to die, all the while bossing him about and keeping him busy, first making him fish on a rocky shore hoping he’d get washed away, then sending him up to get coconuts hoping he’d fall, then making him fish all night until he finally dropped down exhausted.
Next morning, Tess hobbles over to the boat to check the water level and there’s only about 5 or so 2 litre bottles left. Knowing that Josh needs to sleep, Tess wakes him up, thinking today has got to be the day that she kills him, or more to the point, the island could kill him for her. So, she sends him off into the jungle with nothing more than a stick and tells him not to come back until he’s got food. She tries to send him with only one bottle of water but he’s not that daft so puts his foot down for once and takes two, leave three with Tess, who decides to hide two and pretend she’s drunk them.
Josh is gone all day and night, but returns unscathed in the morning with bananas. Tess wants Josh to draw a map to show where the bananas are, just in case he has an accident and she’s left all alone to starve so the fool does so. She then probes him about what animals there might be out there to eat, all the while she’s really wanting to know if there are any dangerous and potentially deadly animals out there that might do the job that she cannot do herself.
All that day she lounges around eating fruit and ordering Josh around, while thinking of what’d happen if they ran out of water. It was only logical that at some point they’d turn on each other, and he was much bigger and stronger than her. If it came down to it, it was kill or be killed, and Tess had always been the survivor type. So she tucked a little more water away in her secret stash and when they were down to only one bottle sent Josh into the jungle to look for a water source, again trying to keep the water herself hoping the jungle would finish Josh off, who by now looked a bit worse for wear to say the least. Josh again put his foot down and went off for water. This time he was gone for two nights and Tess was sure that he was dead when he stumbles into their makeshift camp, only to die there and then.
Tess, being the survivor type, had also stashed away water when they were in the speedboat, and after a quick inventory she had over ten litres of water, 50 coconuts courtesy of Josh, a stack of bananas and a map to more, plus over 100 lb of meat.
Being the survivor type, she got straight to preserving the meat.
Tess and Josh couple / stuck on island / middle of nowhere / speed boat been drifting for five days out to sea / landed on island / describe skills for surviving / describe island / Tess made the hardest decision of her life, going to have to kill Josh, okay on the boat, still a glimpse of hope and they’d been catching fish but chances of rescue from the island were slim / call it karma, tess appears to slip, makes Josh do all the work / wants to stop, too hot, no keep going / exhausted, takes a break and tess looks after him / evening time, hungry / no not there, over by the rocks (where it looked my dangerous as one in every twenty waves was extra big) / Josh avoids the waves / back to the beach, fish all night, until exhausted, wants to go to bed, Tess tells him to push the boat up first because it’s high tide now and it might wash away / then try in vain to make a fire for thirty minutes before finally Josh drops to sleep exhausted / Tess waits a minute then walks off into the jungle to do her business
/ next day tess hobbles over to boat to check water levels - five 2 litre bottles remaining / still early, Josh needs to sleep / Tess wakes him up, thinking that today will be the day she kills him. First plan, die from falling from tree / Josh gets coconuts, but with a long pole so he’s safe / then back to fishing while tess thinks of a new way to kill him. Maybe the island could kill him - order him into the jungle and to not come back until he had some food, he could take two bottles, leaving her with the remaining three / gone all day and night, returns the next day early and out of water but with fruit / where is it? Show me, draw a map? Why, I can get more next time, you stay and rest / okay / down to one bottle - what, you drank four litres? Doing nothing / I didn’t do nothing, I lit a fire (with a lighter she had hidden away, along with the four litres of water that she’d hidden, managing to stave her thirst with coconut and some rain water she found collected in leaves /
so the jungle didn’t kill him, she thought, any sign of animals to eat, anything dangerous in there? / few snakes but too high up, some tracks made by a small mammal, probably the size of a small cat / so she’d have to consider other options, although she knew that she couldn’t get her own hands dirty / all that day, nothing came to mind, but she made sure to keep him busy and that evening they had fish supper and fruit / Come morning Tess ate the rest of the fruit, leaving Josh with one banana for himself, and ordered him to get more. They argued about who would have the last litre of water, and although she didn’t want him to take it, she had no choice but to relent; after all, she had the coconuts and he was the one trekking through the jungle / Josh returns exhausted and thirsty with as many bananas as he can carry. Tess has hidden last of the water, now has a stock of 4.5 litres to herself, tells Josh to drink coconut and go and look for water / Josh has no energy left, collapses, she opens coconut for him and he takes it and slowly gets a little better / I’ll have a nap and go look for water later / true to his word, looking too weak to lift an eyebrow, he set off on what was sure to be a fruitless quest / hope he dies / don’t want to see it maybe a spider, maybe a snake or a scorpion / on his way back just near the clearing that led onto the beach and he collapses for the final time.
Jess takes stock for second time / include water stashed when on the boat, one bottle per day / plus 4.5 litres, coconuts, bananas, and 165 lbs of flesh / she was determined to survive and the nutrients on the island would currently keep her alive for a couple of months / she took a knife she’d found on the boat, another one of her secrets and used it as she quickly got to work preserving the meat.
How know this is true and not bullshit? First, friend of mine from same town saw her break down a couple of years ago in the supermarket parking lot and confess, and second, my other friend knew had a friend who had an uncle who treated her when she came back and went to a mental hospital, they fired him for gross misconduct and so with nothing to lose he spilled the beans about her when he was drunk one Halloween and they were all telling stories.