The taste of salt filled the millionaire's mouth. His eyes opening to burning light. Ryan looked down at his arms that were blistering red and pink. The rubber of the raft stuck to his forearms and neck. A peeling occurred as he lifted his head up.
The ocean was so calm. The rolling of the waves was barely noticeable. The average sailor would look at the beautiful horizon, maybe with a beer in hand, and smile. Maybe that sailor would have a wife back home and kids waiting for his arrival. They would go to bed; the sailor would think about where the ocean blue mixed with the red sunset.
The orange raft was small, equip with only a paddle to guide it. Ryan assessed his situation. The headache from the night before, or maybe the night before that, had blocked any attempted thought process.
A glass of water felt so crucial. Ryan reached his hand into the ocean, scooping up a good glug of water. He spat it out immediately, not because of the overwhelming salty taste but because the water soaked into his sunburnt hand. A sharp sting ran through his palm as salt boiled on his skin.
That's when he saw it. Ryan started in the direction of the sun to see an outline of sorts. His eyes stayed peeled to the outline. It seemed only a few inches tall from the distance it was from him.
"Could be a boat. Maybe a rock. A shipment of beer and peaches would be a dream come true", Ryan thought off to himself.
He reached for the paddle, carefully timing the waves so he didn't blister his hand. Ryan paddled left to right, his throat dry, head rocking, skin burned. Being on the edge of possibly dying felt calming at times.
Hearing the sound of waves splashing on the edge of the raft was almost harmonized with his pounding headache. Time flew by at an unexpected rate. Before Ryan knew it, he clearly saw what the outline was.
It was an island. Quite a large one in fact. The beach went on for what seemed like half a mile before turning out of sight.
Once the raft hit the sand, Ryan plopped out and onto the ground. He struggled up and staggered under a palm tree which laid right on the beach. Ryan searched toward the ground for the tree's shadow to get out of the blazing sun, but it was not there.
"Clouds are rolling in so perhaps my eyes were just messing with me."
He moved over to a rock that was only a few feet from the tree and sat down. The cold surface felt nice on his ass, so he began to close his eyes for a moment.
Ryan reached his arms out to his side when his finger rubbed against something unfamiliar. Something moved with a clank, causing Ryan to jump off the rock in shock.
His eyes peered open, then his mouth, followed by his blistered hand. There laid upon the rock, a can of peaches. And beside it, a bottle of liquor.
The world itself was larger than Ryan could have ever imagined. Ryan did not know how small he truly was. Life alone in his large mansion, surrounded by hookers that came and went, gave him happiness.
Seeing himself be in a better position than everyone around him gave him happiness. Happiness to Ryan had truly consumed him from cocaine to gurgling gin. He was happy. He got what he wanted.
The pains started in late June. He kept them from crippling him by eating pills like mints. He would sit in bed and stare at the ceiling as his whole body and mind had become numb. Only a few days had gone by when the pains out-competed the pills.
Ryan realized this when he collapsed onto his bathroom floor one day and hadn't woken up until the next. No one saw him fall down. Who would have?
The process of getting up and driving to the hospital was a blur. Getting out of his car in the hospital parking lot caused him to become dizzy. It had felt as time had sped up, his body ahead of his brain.
He was cold too since all he was wearing was a robe and flip-flops. He wobbled his way to the front desk. The poor desk lady stood up in shock at Ryan's purple body and began to panic.
"Sir! Sir are you okay? Here, let me help you."
The lady used herself as his cane, lifting him by his shoulder. His ears at this point had gone to complete ringing. His vision shook with his body as doctors panicked to help carry him to a hospital bed.
People didn't believe him when he recalled seeing something as he passed through the "C Wing" of the hospital. He stared off down the hallway as people struggled to carry him. Followed by the sounds of ringing and humming, a grand piano laid at the end of the hall. Each key had dark ink spilling from them, covering the surrounding floor. From there, it all went dark.
After being in the hot raft for hours it had felt nice to sit soundly. His stomach gurgled as he stared down at the suspicious can of peaches and bottle of sandy liquor. He grabbed the can and inspected it.
The can itself looked brand new. The top had a small tab that could be pulled up to open it.
Ryan took his sunburnt fingers and lifted the tab. His fingers stung and tingled as they dug into the tab. The lid popped off, followed by a "crack!"
The wind shook the palm trees behind Ryan as the smell of sweet fruit filled the air. He took the can and tilted it back over his mouth.
He expected the sweet taste of soft, juicy fruit. Ryan stopped suddenly and looked down into the can after a large swallow of the contents.
Immediately Ryan gagged and threw the can to the ground. He began to vomit as a feeling tickled the back of his throat. He continued to dry heave until he fell back onto his ass. His face was as pale as a ghost.
Vomit drizzled from his lips as he looked back at the can he had thrown. Something shifted within the sand beneath the can. Little worms and maggots crawled back into the ground as the can had changed its appearance.
It had orange rust, causing the label to become unreadable. Ryan began to throw up again from the sight of the maggots. He turned toward the bottle of liquored to find the glass had become a shattered mess in the sand. Glass shards glistened within the dark bottle.
Ryan felt confused and uneasy. He clenched his side and wheezed. Throwing up took a lot of force and energy from the rich man. He couldn't handle the sight or smell of the area anymore, going from sweet and trusting to rancid and acidic.
Ryan shifted his body off the sand and walked to the raft. The ocean water had passed where the raft sat parked by a few inches meaning the tide was coming in.
Ryan had remembered when he went to buy the yacht originally. The man selling it said he had to take a mandatory sailing test to be able to purchase it.
Ryan had forgotten about it till the night before. He recalled that night he had been sleeping with a hooker, high on pills. He was seeing patterns fly by as he relaxed in his bed.
The hooker had made her way around the room. His dark bedroom was small for the oversized mansion which by her knowledge, had only been housed by him.
She wandered to a desk littered with papers and books. The titles included things like "How to Sail", and "Sailing for Dummies."
"Hey. Are you learning to sail?" The woman looked back at Ryan, barely able to comprehend what was being said.
He shifted on top of his pillow to look toward her and gave a barely comprehendible response.
"Learning to sail for yacht. Bought a bunch of books, didn't read. The ceiling is melting like rainbows-". Everything after that was jumbled gurgles and moans.
Ryan woke up the next morning to see his desk had been cleaned. He trembled out of bed with the stench of sweat on his robe. To his surprise, the final yacht test form had been filled out.
He made his way to his closet to change to find all the clothes and cash in the closet had been stolen and ransacked. But he passed the test with a 100 percent score, so all was well. Until he was on an island alone, with a maggot-filled can of peaches.
He dragged the raft inland, pushing against muddy sand. The sensation of cold sand felt good on his feet until he got away from the tide. His feet burned constantly under the sand that cooked beneath the sun.
Ryan's palms had lost most feeling from gripping the rough rope. His hands became scabbed, peeling from previous sunburns. The raft became heavier with every pull.
Ryan squinted every tug at the rope. His brain rocked as the sun had become hotter. Finally, he felt something that wasn't lava-hot sand beneath his feet. Cold, wet grass.
Ryan fell to one knee in a poor attempt to drag the raft onward. His knee landed on the cool, dew-covered blades of grass. He looked up for the first time in the past twenty minutes.
The sun was setting. He stared off at the purple glazed sky that had only just appeared. He turned to the sun, or where it should have been. The light was coming toward him, casting shadows from a place the sun was not. He tumbled down to the raft and scrambled through the sand that had gotten inside.
He grabbed onto a glistening compass that had found its way to the floor of the raft. It was warm to the touch, the chain dangling between his red fingers.
Sand stuck into his nails as his head glistened with sweat. He popped the compass open and lifted it toward his face. He turned to the sun for the arrow to shift toward the east. He turned back toward the light opposite of the sun for it to slowly glide to the west.
Ryan stood in confusion. His eyes burned from sweat. He took his arm and wiped at his glistening forehead. He checked the compass again to be met with the same result.
"The sun is setting in the East?" Ryan stated out loud.
Partly for himself, but also to fill the soundless island. He looked toward the ocean tides. The water was becoming darker with the night taking over the sky.
Ryan looked back toward the island. Infront of him stood trees beyond the sand. He waddled his way through the grass toward the closest one. It was a palm tree, a lot like the ones in his backyard by his pool. Unlike the pool, the water here stunk of salt.
He crouched down onto the ground and closed his eyes. He began to think as he dozed off.
"Isn't it strange that I haven't seen a single fish the entire time?"