Darrell, Logan, Carter, and I all sat at the card table as Jia and Brett pinged and ponged the ball back and forth, perhaps just a little too aggressively.
"What are all your favorite foods? I need some ideas for future meals," Brett asked as he smacked the ball back at Jia.
The ping pong ball flew past Jia and hit Darrell in the head as he put a card down on the table.
Darrell took in a breath, then looked up at Brett. "Don't do that again."
"It's Jia's fault for not blocking it. Don't blame me," Brett replied.
Jia shook her head, then put the ball back into play after Darrell handed it to her.
Brett and Jia seemed to be rather friendly even though I thought they just met that day, but I also figured that they were a bit more outgoing than me and significantly less grumpy than Darrell.
The foghorn went off. Again.
And with that information, I formulated a hypothesis in my head. This summer is going to be the strangest one I've ever had.
How I would quantify the results and analyze the data wasn't too important to me, since I knew I would be proven right by other means.
***
The following morning, the sun was up by the time I opened my eyes at five o'clock. The squawking of the birds still hadn't gone away (nor would it ever), and that goddamn foghorn still blared every twenty-three seconds.
According to my research, it was annoying as hell, but eventually, I would stop perceiving the sound. All I had to do was ignore the noise as well as possible, and the best way to do that was to distract myself with something else.
I headed downstairs, the natural light illuminating the house, and into the dining room.
There was a small generator in the corner with the sole responsibility of keeping our phones and laptops charged, and Darrell sat at the table, a cup of coffee to his left and his computer to his right.
"Already working?" I asked with a smile. He certainly seemed like that kind of person.
He nodded. "Gulls never sleep, and in order to get the widest range of samples, I need to record the gulls as frequently and in as many situations as possible."
"I think gulls sleep, though. Right?" I asked.
"Well, they do in a literal sense, but for my purposes, they're always my experiment, and I have to treat them as such."
"So did you record the birds this morning?"
"Well," he hesitated, "not exactly, but I need to get started on designing a method to keep all of my data organized since that was one of the main issues I had last year."
"I'd offer to help, but my gull knowledge is a little lacking. I prefer animals a little closer to humans," I said.
"Like whales?"
I nodded. "Exactly."
"Well, to each his own, I guess, but in my opinion, the only reason mammals are worth having on this planet is because they produce milk."
"But you're a mammal."
"And I can't even produce milk, so I'm pretty much double worthless," Darrell said.
I wasn't about to disagree with him, but I attempted to smile anyway. "I think I'm gonna grab some coffee and make sure I have all the tools I need for my whale expeditions."
And I was afraid that I would be the strangest person on the island.
Darrell nodded and went back to his work, and just as I poured some milk (courtesy of the wonderful mammal, the cow) into my coffee, Toby, the part-time manager, part-time slacker came in from the front door in the kitchen.
"Morning, Reagan, Darrell," he greeted us.
"Hey, Toby, do you know where I can find all the stuff I'll need for my project?" I asked.
"It should be in the storage room above the garage. It's out back," he said.
"Thank you." I smiled, took a sip of my coffee, then headed upstairs to get dressed for the day. Judging from the clouds and fog approaching from the horizon, rain was a possibility, and if I had learned one thing while during my time at Atlantic Coastal College, it was that Maine weather would soak anyone to the core out of spite.
It would only be a hundred times worse in the middle of the ocean.
Jia was still asleep despite the foghorn, gulls, and sun radiating through the window, so I took extra care to keep quiet.
I put on my jeans, tugging them up my legs by a belt loop, with my coffee in the other hand. Unfortunately, I figured out that I wasn't nearly coordinated enough for such a complex task after I tipped over and spilled the coffee on the floor. As I regained my balance, my footsteps weren't as quiet as I wanted, and Jia sat up, pushing her shoulder-length black hair out of her eyes.
"The fuck?" she muttered softly.
"Sorry, this kind of stuff happens to me all the time," I whispered. "You can go back to sleep now. I put on my pants, so that won't be an issue again."
She let out a sigh. "Yeah, until you need to put on your socks."
"Sorry. I was trying to be quiet."
"It's fine. I probably should have been awake already. Do you know if Darrell's up yet?"
I nodded. "He's already working on his project, even though the sun's only been up for half an hour."
"That fucker." Jia pushed the sheets off her bed, stood up, and put her hair up as she walked toward the door. "Of course he is."
"Is there an issue?" I asked, but Jia had already left.
If she and Brett were too friendly, Jia and Darrell had a hatred brewing, and it didn't seem to have a logical start to it. Of course, I was limited by what I knew, but as I pulled on a pair of boots, I couldn't help but wonder.
I was a naturally curious person, and if curiosity killed the cat, then it could kill me too.
I headed back downstairs and out the door, where it hadn't begun to rain yet, but an ominous blanket of clouds inched its way closer. Before I could begin my trips to collect data for my whale cataloging project, Robbie and Nastasya wanted to give me time to adjust to the life on Paradise City.
For an isolated, desolate place with no running water, it wasn't too bad. But it was only day two, and there was still plenty of time to change my mind about that.
Behind the house was a smaller building. On the lower level was a boat garage for Toby's small boat for getting on and off the island, and on the upper level was an open room with a couple benches. I climbed up the ladder-like stairs to the top level, where Toby told me the storage room was.
The entire building was roughly constructed with wood, and it smelled exactly like a hardware store inside. There was a bit of water damage that trailed down the wall, but that was to be expected in such a damp place.
Upon one of the benches was a black case, and I knew exactly what it held. I opened it up, and there was my crossbow.
It wasn't mine, actually, but I would be the one using it, and it was pretty badass.
The crossbow wasn't for killing, though. It had a special tip on it to simply puncture and collect the whale's skin and into its blubber layer, so I could sample it to test the overall health of the whale. However, I had to be careful with such a toy, since I had a permit to collect samples from the United States government, but not the Canadian government. Canadian waters were never far away, and I made a note in my brain to be mindful of that.
I also made a note to write that somewhere on my arm to make sure I remembered.
I gave the crossbow one last longing glance before I shut the case.
Some girls liked boys, some liked girls, and some liked both. That was great, and perhaps love was just absolutely wonderful, but I liked saving the world, one whale at a time. All I needed was a camera, a couple blubber samples, and an internet connection, and I was in my euphoric paradise.
I also needed to convince some people that my work was worth something, but there were some things that didn't need hard evidence to prove. The validity of a passion was one of those.
Sprinkles of rain met the roof of the building, and as I climbed back down to the bottom level, the heaviness intensified, but despite the weather, I wanted to see what else was on the island.
There was one more structure I wasn't familiar with, and I didn't even know what it was. It was some sort of elevated loft or watchtower, and it was across the island from the rest of the buildings. Paradise City wasn't particularly big, so the only time-consuming issue was scaling the uneven rocks, covered in shit and nests.
Just as Guns and Roses would have wanted it, I imagined.
The tower faced the ocean, and waves crashed upon the shore as I climbed up the ladder.
I needed to know what was up there and what I could see from there, and the best way to discover was to jump right in unless it was into shark-infested waters. But even though normal sharks weren't nearly as bloodthirsty as Jaws, no one really liked sharks, thanks to the negative coverage they got in the fake news.
The foghorn went off, and I peered into the tiny compartment of a room that looked out over the ocean.
Puke Boy. Or rather, Logan.
Despite the roof overhead, rain sprinkled through the glassless windows that faced the water, but he stared out, not fazed by the weather or my presence. Maybe he just didn't notice.
I wanted to say something to him, to ask him what he was looking at, but my mouth remained sealed. There was a certain beauty in such concentration and admiration, and I didn't want to break it for him, even though I wanted to indulge in the fascination as well.
Maybe I'd bother him a different day when we knew each other a little better.
I turned my attention back to the ladder.
"You know," Logan said, turning to me, "instead of recording just the gull noises, Darrell could probably make a killing off of all the sounds on this rock. The waves crashing on the shore, the birds, that goddamn foghorn. He could call it the rock album and sell that shit. Instant millionaire."
I let out a chuckle. "Rock album? Was that a pun?"
He nodded. "Although, I must admit that there's a minor fault in my plan. Nobody would want to buy this shit. They'd pay not to ever hear it again."
"You could just lock people in a room and play the album, then make them pay a bunch of money so they can leave."
"Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant." He smiled, then let out a breath along with the words, "Illegal, but still."
"Maybe if they paid us for our research, we wouldn't have to resort to criminal activity."
He chuckled. "Yeah, no shit. Here, come look at this."
I hesitated before climbing into the room, keeping my head ducked low to prevent myself from smacking my head on the ceiling. There wasn't much room for navigation, and as I had already proven that day, I had the motor skills of a drunk three-year-old.
"I was kind of listening to you talk to Robbie and Nastasya on the boat, and you said that whales are your thing, right?" Logan asked.
I nodded and took a seat on the bench next to him, maintaining a stranger-like distance.
Down below the tower, there was a herd of seals resting on the rocky surface while a few others poked their heads out of the waves out in the water.
From up there in the building, we weren't in their line of sight, and our presence shouldn't have affected their behavior.
Logan smiled. "Seals are my thing."
"They're cute," I said as my eyes fell on a particular baby seal, scooting and inching its way away from the water. "Especially the young ones."
"Yep, and they're fascinating, too. I just need to narrow down my idea for my project on them."
Maybe you should test to see if they're prone to seasickness and yelling at people who try to help, I thought.
"What species are those?" I asked instead.
"Phoca vitulina, or the harbor seal, I think. It'd be easier to tell if we weren't a hundred feet away, twenty feet in the air."
I would have offered to help him come up with a project idea, but he had already established that my ideas weren't wanted or needed.
Instead, I stood up and hit my head against the ceiling. My head throbbed and ached in response, and I ducked lower to prevent it from happening again.
"Dammit, I forgot about that," I muttered as the foghorn blared.
Logan turned back to the window in an attempt to cover his laughing.
It wasn't very funny to me, but I smiled anyway and headed back to the house.
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Hey there, you beautiful human! Thank you for reading! I hope you're doing well.
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