Fiction: Marooned

Greetings!

Chuck Wendig's flash fiction challenge this week was called Down The TV Tropes Rabbit Hole. It took me about zero-point-six seconds to decide that answering it would be much, much more entertaining than doing my Classics essay. No prizes for figuring out what got written first. Miraculously, Marooned clocked in just under the 1k target at 999 words. The trope I used can be found here, but it's probably best to read the story first. Enjoy!

Marooned

Dodderidge Marsh surveyed her guest with ill-concealed apathy. His dark hair was wild and unkempt, his shirtsleeves hung open at the cuffs—the buttons had snapped—and he was barefoot, pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. If she’d been thirty years younger, she might have thought him rather dashing, but she wasn’t; all she could think of was that she’d liked him much better when he was half-dead and incapable of speech.

“This is ridiculous,” he was saying, running his fingers through his hair—really not helping matters there, son, she thought—as if it might stimulate a latent brilliance for escapology. “Who gets shipwrecked these days anyway?”

“I don’t think it counts as shipwrecked if the ship didn’t wash up on shore with you,” Dodderidge said reasonably.

“What? Oh fine. Marooned on an island, if it suits you better.”

“It does.”

“Very well, but that’s hardly very important—um, Dudley was it?”

“Dodderidge.”

“Right. Dodderidge. Thomas Fletcher,” he gestured haphazardly to himself. “Are you sure you don’t have a phone or a radio or something?”

“Dead sure.”

“What about a telegraph?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

There was a moment of blessed silence.

“You don’t happen to know how to send smoke signals, do you?”

“No.”

“Do you have any way at all of communicating with the rest of the world?”

“Let me think about that…” Dodderidge began slowly. “No, oddly enough, I haven’t acquired any telecommunications devices at all since the last time you asked.”

“For heaven’s sake, Dodderidge, we can’t afford to be petty in a time like this.”

“On the contrary, Mr Fletcher. You might have forgotten but you drifted ashore onto my beach. I have a beach; I can afford a great deal of pettiness.”

Thomas looked at her severely. She quirked an eyebrow, leaned back in her chair and smiled cheerfully.

“But I also have a hut; maybe I can afford some sarcasm to go with my triviality.”

Thomas sighed. “Look here, Dodderidge, we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot. I don’t mean to insult you; I just want to get off this island.”

“And believe me, boy, there’s little I want more than to help you do just that, but the fact is that I can’t. Not right now.”

“…Is this the part where you lie and tell me that it’s impossible to leave the island because you think I need to rediscover myself before I can click my heels and go home? Because I just think you should know that I really don’t care about the state of my soul—”

“That makes two of us.”

“—also, I hate meditation, I don’t drink tea, and I did karate when I was twelve; believe me, there is no inner ninja hidden under this pasty white flesh.”

“I have absolutely no interest in your inner anything, so sit down and shut up.” Thomas perched gingerly on the side of Dodderidge’s bed. “Have some brandy,” she offered. “It’ll pass the time.”

Thomas stared at Dodderidge, mouth agape. “You cannot be serious,” he spluttered. “I am not going to sit around here, drinking brandy, for however long it takes to develop alcohol poisoning and die!”

“You don’t like brandy?”

“Nobody likes brandy!”

“I like brandy,” Dodderidge said, offended.

“You don’t count.”

“And why not?”

“Because—” Thomas faltered. “Oh, it’s not important. Look, we’ve just got to—”

“Thomas,” Dodderidge interrupted him. “How long do you think I’ve been here?”

Thomas’ mouth wriggled as he considered. 

“I’ve no idea,” he said finally.

“Twenty-three years.”

“…With the brandy?”

“With the brandy,” she confirmed. “And I’m not dead yet, am I?”

“So I’ve got at least twenty-three years left!” Thomas smiled in a way that portended unpleasant, possibly hysterical, conversation. Dodderidge cringed. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Did I give the impression of wanting to make you feel better? I apologise; that was not my intention.”

“You cannot possibly expect me to stay here—indefinitely!” Thomas spluttered desperately.

“Certainly not!” Dodderidge exclaimed, appalled by the very thought.

“Oh,” Thomas said faintly, staring at Dodderidge—he was doing a lot of that and she was getting quite fed up of it—as if some great secret had revealed itself in her crow’s feet.

“What the matter, boy?” Dodderidge barked, shifting under his continued scrutiny. Thomas didn’t answer for a long moment, and then he began to laugh. Dodderidge’s face contorted in alarm; it would be just her luck to get a mad one.

“It’s just—” he said, giggling oddly. “I’ve just realised, you see. You must’ve known this whole time, but I’ve only just realised…”

“Realised what, you wanker?”

“Well, you’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

Dodderidge closed her eyes, lamenting her choice to help the bastard.

“Alright,” she said straightening in her chair and fixing Thomas with a firm glare. “I’ve had about enough of this. You pipe down with the histrionics, and I’ll tell you what’s what. Understood?”

Thomas nodded.

“Firstly: I’m not going to kill you, even if you are the most irritating thing this side of the equator. Secondly: I’m not stuck here; I’m a hermit—”

“A hermit?” Thomas exclaimed, with the kind of shock that might have been reasonable if she’d just declared that she was involved in an amorous relationship with a penguin, but was quite unnecessary here.

“Yes. A recluse, an eremite, whatever you want to call it—”

“But why?”

“This might’ve escaped your notice, but I don’t like people. But don’t worry, you’re not trapped here—well, only for a few hours. At about half past seven tonight we’ll have low tide; there’s a sandbar that runs from here to the main island. You can walk over then, easy as you please.”

Thomas blinked. “Oh.”

“Yes. Now don’t you feel silly?” Dodderidge said smartly, reaching down to pick up her discarded copy of War and Peace. “You young people…One catastrophe after the next. Now shut up, I’m reading.”

END