The waves crushed up against the fleeting crags, assaulting Mrs. Dent's complexion, spitting salt in her hair. The humidity had made it unkempt and folded in an unrhythmic distort of coils and waves. She aggravated over her hair more than anything else and found that the ferry ride to the tiny island had been far less than what she had expected in terms of comfort and service. Her concerns were immediately and constantly vocalized to within her patient husband's earshot; Not a single upset nor a solitary complaint that drifted through his wife's head found its ultimate resolve without first being addressed in its entirety to the poor tired ears of Stephen Dent. The entire boat ride had been little more than a lecture to him, his wife's incessant droning playing on his nerves, tuning out the rhapsodic voice of the ocean throughout the course of the trip. And now, their minor parcels and belongings in hand, they departed the ferry, trudging onto the sopping wet beach, browned with mud and addled by countless rocks of no flattering colors.
“Ain't much to look at, is it?” A weary Mr. Dent heaved, half sighing. “Not much worth the dollar-twenty we took out of pocket for this, now is it?”
“Oh, hush. Would it kill you to be cultured for once?” Mrs. Dent eyed the landscape with casual scrutiny. The remote terrain was a dozen or so miles in expanse, with the lay of the land affording her a fulfilling gaze as to its contents. From their point of arrival she could see nearly the entirety of the island, from a small vale with the remnants of a modest stream that ran through two erroneously placed peaks, clear to the opposite shoreside. The two mountains were very steep, but unusually deficient in size and ran the length of the plummetous valley. Her attention was soon distracted by the muck she had unintentionally introduced to the inner edges of her shoes, and her primary concern abruptly turned to finding an unsoiled spot on which she could abrade herself of the grime. The land was barren, aside from the kitschy souvenir stand and signs designating arrival and departure times for the daily ferry rides. All the ground was soiled, covered in a fine, ashy sand the color of chocolate. The ash had become a slick coating of browned moss, becoming sludge after mingling with the dense blanket of ocean mist that stung the air.
Mrs. Dent stepped onto the haphazard boardwalk built with terrible constriction around the souvenir stand, and began dragging her heels across the edges of the wood in futile attempts to cleave most of the rubbish from her feet.
“Why'd ya' even wear your nice clothes, Judith? Didn't ya' remember that this place is, after all, 'uncharted wilderness'?” He spoke, waving his arms around in a mocking sarcasm, rolling his fingers in extravagant jest of otherworldly nature. “'The great island, lost to time and mankind's touch', huh? This place has sure lost touch, all right. And to any good sense of taste, for that matter.” He felt a warm wind rise from the boiling oceans, prompting him to remove and fold his jacket over his arms. He put his right had inside his pants pocket, trying to distract himself from the unease of standing in so pointless a place.
“Oh, now darling,” Mrs. Dent's voice loomed, capturing his attention. She turned to the heavyset man hunched over in the corner of the stand, mindlessly fanning himself in the gradually rising heat. “How much for this?” Her hand hovered over a brochure with an aerial view of the island printed on its cover.
“That one? It's is free with tour, lady,” he muttered in a broken accent through broken teeth. Mrs. Dent teased herself with the back of the pamphlet, feigning disinterest before taking one and strolling back to her husband, who was by this time sitting on the far edge of the boardwalk, kicking sludge and turning stones with a stick of unknown origin. Upon being asked if he would care to hear the backstory of the island, he responded with an impartial grunt, prompting his wife to recount to him the writing in unwarranted tone of respect and dignity, not unlike the manner a jingoist recites the Declaration of Independence.
“The Red Event was a phenomena of mysterious occurrence that destroyed the entire population of this island one-hundred and seventeen years ago. On the day of January 12th, in 1710, a large light, blood-red in color, was seen on the horizon by several reputable fishing vessels. The light was presumed to be several knots wide and considerable in luminosity.” She broke her diction and looked down towards her husband briefly. “That's brightness,” she added, complacently. “The origin of the light prompted investigation by several interested parties, and so the miraculous light having come from uncharted waters, the expedition team of R. H. Abram's & co. was generously funded and set out to discover the truth behind the unusual event, with Mr. Abram himself heading the voyage. Much futility was encountered in trying to triangulate the placement of the site of the event, and many members of the party formed were adamant that the light had occurred out at sea, in unmappable territory. It was at great length and no small amount of determination, however, than the esteemed R. H. Abram managed to discover the phantasmic existence of this forbidden isle.”
“Forbidden?” Mr. Dent interrupted. “In fact the dangers of this phantasmic isle are so prevalent they have daily ocean trips out to the damned thing!” He teased his wife with his contradicting narrow views, but she paid little heed to his attempts at aggravation.
“The crew arrived to the island sixteen weeks after the Red Event,” she went on to read, her husband's cheap attempts at distraction only serving to bolster her resolve. “Only to be met with horror. The entire island had once been a thriving self-sufficient town, replete with a town square, marketplace, and even a dock. The townsfolk, however, were nowhere to be seen. It is presumed that the Red Event, whatever the mystic origins, had smothered the town, destroying whatever living things remained and turning the ashes of their fallen bodies and buildings into the thick mud, clay and silt you see before you.” Her arm drooped, bringing the pamphlet to her knees, and with stricken expression she said “Wow. Astounding.”
It was here that a growingly tense Stephen Dent chose to voice his concern. “I highly doubt any of that malarky to be anything other than falsity. I assume they need not tell us the condition they found the townspeople, because they found no bones or corpses or other sort of foul remains. I know they wouldn't send out a damned expedition to investigate a light they saw out at sea. Why, I'd bet any sailor worth his salt would have known it to be a squall or mere trick of the ocean. Truly, dear, you read into things too easily and aren't as capable in seeing past hoax as I. Do you really think this supposed town could sustain itself out in the middle of the sea as this? Or that it would be without some other part of the world knowing that it is? They say there was a town here, but I see no remnant of buildings, plumbing or agriculture. They said this is some island that some unknown event caused the entire population to be destroyed. It could have been a good number of things, but I say it was a meteor. They're horribly common out at sea. I say they went on a wild goose chase and like idiots didn't find a damn thing, randomly chose the nearest island and began fleecing anyone gullible enough to believe the thing. I say that this R. H. Abram had a failing boating company and hoaxed this unclaimed island into a mythic wives' tale, cut his losses and supplanted his company into a tourist attraction, harboring excess funds from unwitting folks such as you and I.”
“You can't so easily cast this off as being fake,” his wife spoke heated, with an inner purity of passion. "People can survive on their own if they make use of their God-given resources. Haven't you read the explorer journals about Easter Island? The natives there were—"
"At least they have stone heads to look at," interrupted Mr. Dent. " But this place ain't worth the time it took in gettin' here. And don't feed me no lines about that goddamned journal—you know that Cook feller's just full of shit."
Mrs. Dent stood in silent ponder, her eyes mimicking rereading the pamphlet. Finally, with renewed purpose, she turned to face the mountainsides. “Maybe there were people, maybe there were buildings, but the ruinous nature of the ocean spray and the heat and humidity may have made them deteriorate all the faster. Maybe their remains were salted and worn down into the island. Maybe something did happen that day that made this island into what it now is. Can't you at least entertain the possibility?”
But Mr. Dent had already donned his coat, and with his back staring at his wife, had started to make his way back to the ferry.
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