"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip." Yeah, I know - the immortal opening line from "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island." Now, before any of you dear readers out there go and tell Sherwood Schwartz's lawyers about what I did, I simply felt that particular line from that familiar theme song seemed to fit this little story - a tale about a man who boards a pleasure cruise one ordinary evening, only to wake up on a deserted tropical island, quite possibly the ship's lone survivor. "Farfetched," you might say? Please, read on…
Take David Bennett for instance - obviously a guy, with brown hair that desperately needed to be cut, a five o'clock shadow that he never really planned to shave, and a light tan that would normally drive women wild. Notoriously cynical, extremely sarcastic and a true loner at heart, the few friends he had knew he was as loyal and true a friend you'd ever find walking on two legs. Physically, he stood about 1.88 meters (6'02'') tall and weighed around 98 kilograms (215 pounds)- was slightly muscular, though definitely not muscle-bound. (The only reason he took up light weightlifting to keep in shape was the fact it was the only sport he was ever good at - and that wasn't saying much.) More of a grease monkey than a jock by nature, he was always more at home in an auto shop than a gymnasium any day. In fact, he couldn't throw a football or catch a baseball if it meant saving his life, and don't even ask about bouncing a basketball.
Extremely goal-oriented, David felt that he had to grow up just barely getting by. After his father died in a tragic work-related accident when he was just a kid, his mother had to work even harder to make ends meet until he was old enough to work on his own. And with her next two marriages ending in nasty divorces - well, the bills just kept piling up with no end in sight. As he grew older, after his mother died when he was seventeen, he swore he would never have to go through life without the simple luxuries those around him took for granted. Now, that's not saying when he finally did have money, he was some kind of a Scrooge - in fact, he was quite charitable; the problem was that he had to know (to the smallest fraction) where his money was going or else he wouldn't donate anything to your cause! And if he did loan you money, and you promised to pay him back by a certain time, you had better do so before that day ended or you would truly face his full wrath.
Never craving too much social interaction growing up, it never bothered David that he'd never had an actual romantic, sexual relationship before. Now that's not to say he didn't want one, but to this day it never really bothered him that he was a virgin past the age of twenty-five - which is why his friends/co-workers signed him up for this little pleasure cruise. No, he wasn't like that or anything, he was just notorious for having real bad luck with women. Unlike most men, he never felt comfortable going all the way until he knew the woman he was seeing real well… which was usually after their second or third date - thing is, he could never get to that all too necessary first date. As far as high school and the community college were concerned, he felt he never had the money, let alone the time, to keep anyone of the fairer sex interested long enough to stick around.
All of this eventually led him to the deck of the Solomon Queen - a two week long pleasure cruise that was intended to bring unattached singles together at a tropical lonely hearts club for a massive orgy. Chances are, though, if the architects knew that the ship's maiden commercial voyage would've ended like this, they probably would've christened it "Titanic II." One night, halfway through the cruise, there was a terrible storm and now one of the passengers, assumed to be the ship's lone survivor, clings to a steamer trunk drifting out to sea, knocked out and barely holding on to life itself, waking up two short days later on the sandy shores of an uncharted island.
Very little is known about this remote tropical paradise. Its location isn't recorded on any chart or map in circulation. Wild animals prowl its dense jungles, from the enormous volcanic crater to the wide sandy beaches. Lost and alone, can David survive long enough to find other castaways and meet island natives? This obviously isn't the tropical island getaway David had in mind.
