The Island that Drank the Sea
A dream short story.
After a long and cold winter in Melbourne, I finally had enough and decided to plan an escape holiday to a tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific.
The trip was long, flying to the capital city on the main island and then taking a few ferries between islands to get to this remote destination. It was worth it, though, because I simply needed to get away from people.
Funnily enough, people followed me everywhere. I don't know why but I guess when you travel you meet people too. When I was on the plane between Melbourne and Tahiti, I got to talk to an elderly man who told me about a strange island he came across just outside the French Polynesian chain of Islands in the Marquesas Islands that's constantly obscured with clouds. He said he had heard stories but everyone has been afraid to visit it. I got intrigued, and thought it might be good to visit it.
One problem, though: the Marquesas Islands are only accessible by ship. When arriving in Tahiti I asked some of the locals how to get to Marquesas Islands. One local said to use a ship called Aranui 5 from the Port of Papeete in Tahiti. I first decided to stay at least one night to enjoy Tahiti at a local Airbnb superhost.
It was a particularly sunny day and there were sporadic storm clouds in the distance but super bright where we were along the island chain. As we went past one small island after the next, almost in a row and each of them had unique physical features. Some had mountains. Some had just trees and some a bit of both. The ferry finally took me to the small remote island. When I saw it in the distance it was the last in the island chain and the furthest away from all the others. I think no one paid attention to it. It was a small island and there was nothing anyone did on that island. In fact, some people said to me to stay away from that island and they seemed afraid.
The island had a chain of mountains and deep forest with some waterfalls, kilometres of beautiful sandy beaches and a few resort huts. From a far distance I realised that the boat had to get to a certain depth and couldn't go further as the waters were very crystal clear and we saw how shallow the water was getting. The only option was for me to jump overboard and swim with my backpack. Unfortunately everything in the backpack got wet.
The island didn't have a pier to dock next to either. At this point I got a little bit scared because swimming through these waters I thought there might be a shark. But the water looked pretty clear and there weren't that many fish around at the time as the waves were pretty big. Going for it, I jumped in and started swimming. Like clockwork every now and then there came behind me a huge wave that went over my head as I was swimming. I had to take in a deep breath to make sure I didn't drown.
Finally exhausted from the swim I fell onto the beach and sort of lay down to catch my breath and gather my strength again. As I lay there, my beard sank into the wet sand, and all of a sudden, I started feeling something licking my eyes. I opened my eyes and realised there was a small dog that kind of resembled a Tahitian Dog. It had a long body, curly tail and a light brown coat. It was a short dog and it looked very lazy. I guess it got curious as to what this human was doing on this secluded beach on an island that everyone forgot. I thought these dogs were extinct but it looks like these dogs were still around on this island. I guess dogs are good judges of character because he decided he would tag along with me. I decided to call him Cappuccino or short Cappa because his light white brown fur reminded me of a cappuccino.
Cappa and I started walking along the beach and my first priority was water and food. I jokingly asked Cappa: “You wouldn't happen to know where I can get some water, would you?” He sort of looked at me and he barked. Maybe he understood the basics of it so he started leading me into the forest. After walking about 10 minutes we arrived at a waterfall. What looked like running fresh water. And from my survival learning I remembered that flowing water is quite safe. Along the creek where it was flowing I had a drink, which was really refreshing. Cappa decided it was important to have a drink as well just in case.
Now I said to him “Thanks for the water. Do you happen to know where I could find some food like fruit?” He must have spoken to humans in the past because he sort of started walking in a different direction. I decided to follow him and he showed me inside the forest a little bit further down a whole lot of fruit trees that looked like mangoes, and all kinds of other food that looked familiar. I thought I'd be very careful because some tropical fruits can be poisonous. But I found some things I could eat and I started eating as I was hungry.
Now that the basics were sorted, I decided to walk along the beach to the other side of the island. The middle of the island was a large mountain that was hard to see across. I thought it might be good to see the lay of the land as it were. It took me the better part of the day to get around the other side. Cappa was walking next to me, but he was also searching for all kinds of meaty foods. Along the way he was catching stuff out of the water like little fish and crustaceans and also eating bugs and occasionally chasing a turkey or some sort of a chicken.
When I got to the other side, around a sharp bend, I saw a beach. What I saw next shocked me to the point that I fell to the sand and just gasped with my mouth open.
What I saw was an island that was floating just above the shore of the beach of the island I was standing on. When Cappa saw the island floating he started barking and there was a bark from another dog on the island floating. Connecting to the island floating was a lot of tree roots that were sort of hanging over and touching the water. They were probably drinking it somehow. I just sat there for a while. I couldn't believe what I saw.
After I composed my thoughts I thought why don't I check it out. I started climbing the large collection of tree roots in a bunch and Cappa jumped on my back and just held on with his nails on my shirt. But I had a feeling he was pretty good at climbing up those roots as the height was probably several metres high. At least 10 meters I think. Around the edge of the floating island there was a collection of clouds as if it was attached to the island.
After a lot of effort climbing up as I'm not used to climbing up ropes I proceeded to grab onto the edge of the floating island and push myself up as if climbing out of a pool with Cappa on my shoulders. When we got to the top he just jumped off, and he ran off into the forest on the floating island. I said out loud to Cappa: “Where are you off to buddy?” Not realising it, he came back with a friend, a fellow Tahitian dog. It seems that they knew each other, maybe from a distance or he's been up there before. I'll never know.
They both got excited and decided to nudge me with their noses so that I'd come to where they wanted to show me. As I started walking with them through the forest on the floating island, I realised there was an ancient construction. The buildings looked ancient and it was hard to tell based on its architecture what period of human history it was from. It had various square symbols in triangles on the stone work. A lot of the tree roots took over the stonework and it was very dark inside. But it felt like it was very dangerous. I don't know if I wanted to go there by myself. Strange sounds we're coming out of these buildings. Maybe some critters were roaming around.
I decided for now I'm going to find someone else to come with me so that we can explore this ancient building with some backup. I left the two dogs up there and decided to come down to the bottom island and build a raft to get back to the other Islands to get some people to come with me.
Then I climbed down the roots, and that evening I started building a basic craft from bamboo that were growing there and I made some rope from palm tree leaf strips. I went to sleep that night quite late and at night I heard the two dogs barking at me from the island floating.
When I woke up briefly at night from the barks, I realised that the island started to disappear amongst the clouds. The next morning when I woke up I couldn't see the island anymore. I don't know where it went. I tried to look around where it was but I couldn't see it. I decided the best course of action would be to sail back to the main Island and find out more about this floating island whether it was ever seen in the past and try to uncover its secrets.
I launched the raft with a makeshift oar and I proceeded to sail her as it was a fairly calm morning on the beach. I was able to break through the initial waves and then use the oar to sail to the larger Marquesas Islands where there were people. There was a beach tavern on the closest Marquesas island, and when I arrived during that day, I started asking the locals questions. Many told me of the tales of that island I discovered and what they saw when they were younger. But they were surprised that when I was there I saw a floating island. They said this rarely happens and this island appears but no one knows where it goes to.
The mystery remains but my quest has not diminished. I am still intrigued by that floating island and the ancient building on it. Could this have been an ancient civilisation? Is this part of a chain of islands floating above but hidden from view? As I sat down in the evening sunset next to the tavern, drinking a cool coconut water drink with ice, I pondered if I would ever see that floating island again.
THE END.
By Michal Plis
About My Dream Stories
This is a fictional short story based on my dream I had on the 24th of May, 2023. As soon as I wake up, I draw and write the dream into a notebook beside my bed so I can remember. This only happens rarely, as I have to be relaxed for weeks. I hope you enjoyed it. If it resonated with you, please share a comment below.