Breathtaking crepuscular rays extended their glittering beams to the island in the early hours, awaking many life forms on the island.
Signalling the beginning of another day, to survive or be killed. That is, with the exception of the chimps as they reigned over the island, and Colette of course.
As the day continued to progress, the sun sat high above the island with fluffy clouds blocking parts of the sun, preventing the island from being scorching hot.
Colette rested peacefully enjoying the warmth on her hammock, woven from the vines of the nearby trees.
She was actually quite proud of this hammock, it was woven using the vines of two trees next to each other, and gathering various vines from other trees. By first connecting the vines of the adjacent trees to create a base before adding on with the extra vine. (link in this paragraph comment of a similar process!)
During the weaving process, her fingers developed some blisters as the tender skin on her hands were subjected to the repeated friction of the vines. Despite the seemingly simple task, she failed many times before successfully creating a hammock where the shape met her standards.
Due to this, there ended up being many failed hammocks around the island which the chimps ended up taking over, using it to play with.
As Colette rested, Bobo excitedly made his way to her and swiftly jumped onto the resting Colette playfully and placed a flower crown on her head, before joyfully clapping. This naturally woke Colette, her long eyelashes fluttered as she lazily stirred.
"Hey Bobo," She greeted while she yawning before she shifting her position, getting ready to continue napping, despite how high the sun was already.
Annoyed, Bobo wanted to slap her but refrained, instead he nestled himself close to Colette and quietly dozed off. As if thinking he was the better 'person' there was a slight smile on his small face.
Nearby, two chimps watched the pair sleeping peacefully and started commentating like the local aunties gossiping.
"Keh! That human is such a lazy bum. Hmph." One spat disapprovingly, however, with a twinge of tenderness. The other smacked it on the back of the head lightly.
"Ha ha you're just jealous young Bobo sticks to the human more than you." The second chimp revealed and nudged the first chimp in a mocking tone.
Clearly embarrassed, the first chimp started to pound on his chest in a fit and challenged the second chimp, to which he responded by pounding his own chest. Very soon the two chimps engaged in a light scuffle, there were no concerning injuries in the aftermath, as they are forbidden to critically injure each other on the island to maintain their shrivelling population.
Sensitive to the commotion, Colette finally chose to wake up and prepare for the day. Bobo happily got off and even pushed Colette gently urging her to hurry. At his action Colette chuckled and increased her snail's speed by a fraction.
Colette checked the nearby sundial for the time and saw that it was already noon, unperturbed. Colette started her daily stretches before doing a light working out consisting of 25 push-ups, 30 sit-ups, 20 mountain climbers and a 3 minute plank, 4 reps of each.
She does this every morning to get her clear her mind while also using the time to formulate a goal for the day. After experiencing death she realised how short and precious life was, it is only after you lose something valuable do you truly realise its value.
Specifically today she will train her ability to hold her breath underwater, she can currently hold it for 4 minutes. Enough time to dive and catch a few conches.
Truthfully, she is disappointed with her slow progress over the past three years but her body was initially very weak from being undernourished for an extended period of time. In addition, she now had a slight fear of water, though she refuses to admit it to herself.
She proceeded by changing out of the shirt and pants which she was wearing and into a swimsuit which had conveniently washed ashore, like many other items she used.
Facing the water she always got a snippet of the suffocating numbness that slowly occupied her body in her last moments. Suppressing the uncomfortable feeling she took a step into the water confidently, had it been three years ago she would have fallen to her knees and broken down.
Afterall, it was unnerving to face the cause of her death whilst being alive.
However, it was always that one step forward that allowed her to slightly free herself from the shackles weighing her down and dash through the shallow waters, to swim freely.
Of course, she stumbled and tripped over some of the debris lodged into the sand but it didn't stop her from going forward to achieve her objective for the day - to improve by 5 seconds!
crepuscular rays - also known as God rays, a streak/s of light that comes from the sun after sunset or in this case before sunrise, when sunlight breaks through clouds. (it's easier to search a pic of it!)
sundial - a device used to tell the time of day using sunlight