The Bigger Picture

Look! I found an assignment from my Sustainability Studies Class!
The assignment was to write a story about a group of 50 people who have been stranded on a deserted island. The story must revolve around their hunt for resources and also they cannot escape the island. Ever.

Looks like a good plot for a TV Show!


Wait didn't they already make that show?

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The Bigger Picture

Day Three

What a day, after 2 days of walking along the coast of this island I’ve finally found the others from the shipwreck. One of them was smart enough to get a fire going yesterday afternoon so the smoke signal was a good enough indicator as to where they were.

Everyone is still quite shocked by the event, I mean, it’s not every day that you’re stuck on a sinking ship miles from civilisation. I guess the shock hasn’t hit me yet.

Day Five

In one day the camp has grown in strength from 20 people to as much as 45, there are some people who are convinced that we should start trying to find ways off the island. Most agreed.

Against better judgement I argued that we needed to rest and regroup, we had all suffered a traumatic experience, and physical exertion on that scale would probably kill us even faster.

No sooner had I said this that a few more people stood up and pointed out that we should start looking for food and fresh water.

I do believe that we have a chance of survival, for the time being, assuming that we can agree on our next step.

Day Six

We sent off search parties today. Some are to go along the coast, looking for survivors, others are heading into the island to search for food and water, so far we had been eating fish but we needed some diversity, something else.

Our supplies are running out.

Three people who got injured while escaping the ship have died. We buried them, some people actually wanted to eat them. I protested.

People are starting to look to me as being the leader; I simply say that it’s the right thing to do in the long run. But as far as I can see it, there are the long term viewers and the short term viewers. The logical and the idiots, and the idiots are trying to gain supporters.

Day Seven

The first search party has returned. They had managed to bring back a warthog which they had killed. Sadly two of them have been seriously injured and without medical supplies it doesn’t look promising...

We’ve harnessed a nearby stream, the best water I’ve ever tasted; only problem is that it takes 3 hours to get it from the stream to camp.

Day Eight

Another search party has returned with great news, they’ve managed to find a bunch of caves in the mountains. We started figuring out the logistics of the move, naturally someone had to have a problem with this, and they turned out to be the idiots who were still trying to gain supporters. They objected to the move saying that moving away reduces our chances of rescue and also moves us away from the natural resources that are present around us

In the end we agreed to have an outpost system where two people will stay a few days on the beach at the area where the most amount of debris washed up. With that system settled, we started packing to move into the caves. They still weren’t happy but they stopped complaining.

Day Nine

The last search party from the coast returned with no survivors, they did find an old man, but he died on the return journey from exhaustion, they buried him in the shade.

I got attacked the other night, I didn’t see who, but I am sure that it was the idiots. They have begun to become irritants: they don’t work, they don’t contribute but they still eat a large amount of whatever meat and fruits that we find. I’m going to need a solution to them soon.

Also, several of them keep disappearing during the day and returning exhausted, are they working on something behind my back?

Day Ten

Around 20 people have disappeared from our newly assembled campsite, not surprisingly they were all the slackers. Good Riddance.

Day Eleven

Our new camp is finally set up, it’s not bad, but it is defiantly a lot nicer than the humid beach. People have started to make friends despite the horrible conditions. This shows good promise for the future.

The camp may be shabby, but the rest of the island from this vantage point of the caves it truly seems like Eden, there is a forest in which there are plenty of animals and trees with fruits and berries. The stream is now even closer, a good 20 minutes to get there and back. The caves are surprisingly devoid of bats and birds which made it easy for us to occupy the caves and make beds out of some leaves.

Everyone is now getting anxious to start the process of moving forward, their optimism is good, but they all agree that any rescue attempt will take some time, and construction of a boat can always be attempted once everyone is ready to move forward.

Personally, I feel that a lot of these people are connecting to nature in a way they could have never done before, sure there’s the poor soul who wanders around occasionally trying to get a phone signal, but everyone else is enjoying this, isolation.

That is, before we attempt to get off of this island.

Day Thirteen

As I mentioned, over the last few days we have decided to assign ourselves shifts and work in turns, take what we need and nothing else, we don’t know how long we are going to be here.

However, today when I was finishing my shift out in the forest and I was heading back when I saw a large pillar of smoke rise up; startled, I began to run towards the smoke, there should have not been anyone else out there. Grabbing one of the other survivors I told them to head back to the caves and stay there, that I was going to go and check out what happened.

As I ran towards the smoke, I heard a steady thump of hammers. I came out onto an enormous clearing with an enormous pile of tree trunks piled up in the distance. I could see a building civilisation; houses were being constructed with an enormous fire in the centre.

I approached through the trees the long way around.

I observed that several of the men were armed with primitive tools, stone knives and bows. I would really applaud their innovation if they hadn’t been motivated by violence.

Day Fourteen

I came back to the budding settlement this time, to confront them. I met with their leader, a big guy who never gave his name.

I congratulated their construction, and their will to adapt to this island, so fast. I only made sure that they understood that this was our island as well as theirs, and that they should try and only use what they need.

The big guy didn’t like that, and the next thing was that I was pinned to the wall throat first with in my face saying that they weren’t going to share, (he said it with such loath in his voice, like it wasn’t an option) he continued saying how that until they were rescued, they were going to take whatever they wanted into order to be comfortable and to keep that fire burning.

He released me and I fell to the ground as two guards came in and proceeded to beat me up a bit, throwing me out of their camp with a broken finger and a fractured leg. Bleeding, I cursed my misfortune and the naive nature of the fools. Clouds had started to roll in and thunder rumbled in the distance.

I started to limp back to camp, as rain drops started to fall.

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It's quite a read, but I don't think I did too badly. What do you think?