Village E3: Survival of the Human Spirit Read Free

stones that supported it, above the fire. Now, he had to
impatiently wait for the water to cool enough for him to drink it without
burning his mouth. After testing it with his finger several times, he decided
it was ready.
    He reached in and got his two tiny
eggs and placed them on a rock, to enjoy later. He took a small sip to test the
temperature of the water on his mouth. He then chugged it down in seconds,
finishing with water dripping from his chin. His body finally had what it had
been screaming for.
    For a while, John felt like he might
die, but now life here got a whole lot better. He put another pot of water on
to boil. After drinking until his thirst was satiated, he filled his plastic
container with water that had been boiled. He could now concentrate on food and
shelter. Feeling much better, he decided to explore the area around his newly
found pool. On one end of the pool, the water was shallow and very clear, and
he could see crayfish crawling on the rocks, oblivious to his presence.
    He used to catch crayfish to use for
fish bait during the summers at his grandparents' house. He went to where the
water met the shore, and started turning over rocks. The third rock had a big crayfish
under it. He didn't want to get pinched, so he smashed it with a rock, pulled
the tail off, and went looking for more. After hunting for about an hour, he
had ten crayfish tails. He suddenly realized that the claws probably held some
edible meat too, so he went back and started gathering those.
    Into a pot of boiling water, John
dropped the crayfish parts. He couldn't believe his luck. He was going to be
enjoying some real food, and all the water he wanted. Free from his own
personal life and death struggle, he leaned back and rested, while his meal
cooked. This area had everything he needed to get by, but soon panic started to
set in as he realized no one could find him here.
    John needed to go back to the beach,
but first he would eat. The crayfish tails and pinchers were better tasting
than he thought they would be. After sampling those, he picked up one of the
small eggs, and cracked the shell. His nose wrinkled as he held it up and took
a sniff. Even though it didn't smell very good, he took a small bite. Not
too good, he thought. He popped it in his mouth, and chewed it a few times
and then spit it out. Next he tried more crayfish tails. Much better than
eggs, he thought, as he ate one after another. This meal wasn't going to
fill him up, but it was a good start.
    John wasn't sure if he had enough
daylight to get back to his old camp site, but he was going to try. He needed
to be sure to find his way back, so every twenty yards or so, he cut a notch in
a tree, on the ocean side. It shouldn't be too hard to find my way back, he thought. With renewed energy, it didn't seem to take very long for him to
arrive on the beach.
    John had formulated a game plan on
the way back. He put his bag down, and started looking for something to mark
the area with. He found a large fallen limb, about ten feet long. He placed it
in the sand, pointed in the direction of his newly found oasis. On the end
closest to the jungle, he placed two shorter limbs about the same diameter as
the first. Together, the three pieces of wood made an arrow pointing to where
he would be. Anyone should be able to understand what that means, he
thought.
    Next, he started to gather large
limbs and sticks. He made a huge pile of wood, for a signal fire, in case he
saw a plane or boat. He wasn't holding out much hope for seeing a plane though.
He hadn't seen a jet trail since he had been here.
    John was still hungry. He still had a
few pieces of mystery fruit, but he wanted to save them if he could. About a
quarter of a mile away, was a rocky shallow area that formed an elongated circle, almost like a small lake. With
rocks encircling its border, it was almost completely separated from the rest
of the ocean. There were some fish out in the middle, but he wasn't