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It was the hottest day they’d had so far, in the week or so they’d been on the island - so hot that the usual period of only trying to escape the sun had extended into working hours. And after an hour or two of that, most of them had gotten bored enough to head over to the pool to play in there, the water making the heat tolerable. They’d been gathered there for a bit now.
Jack had followed them over, but he had not gotten in the water.
He sat beside the water on a large rock, sharpening a spear. He knew it was plenty sharp already, but he hated to sit around doing nothing. Not when he had failed over and over again to hunt yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. He had to do something. So with strike after strike of hard rock over soft wood, he watched the tip get sharper and sharper and dreamed about it piercing pig flesh until he was pretty sure he was going crazy. Not that he really cared.
Movement in front of him interrupted his obsessive thoughts; his hand slipped. The rock slid off the spear to cut into his leg with force. It was a stinging shock, and on instinct, Jack gasped.
“Careful,” a voice he knew all too well said, a little teasing. “You’ll stick yourself before you stick a pig.”
Jack looked up from the blood collecting at the deepest points of the wound. Torn between irritation and amusement, he muttered, “I’m working on it.”
Ralph had set his arms up on the edge of the pool, feet still kicking listlessly in the water. His head rested on his hand as he smiled lightly at Jack. That smile dropped when water splashed him from behind - Robert had gotten him and was giggling. It was Jack’s turn to smile as Ralph spun around to retaliate.
Shortly, Robert shouted that he surrendered. Ralph returned to Jack. “There,” he said, shaking off excess water. His tone was serious, but he was obviously trying not to smile.
Jack nodded. “You showed him,” he affirmed, tone serious to match.
“Don’t mess with me.”
“You’re the chief.”
“Exactly.”
There was silence while they watched each other. Then Ralph broke into a grin and Jack grinned too and then they were both laughing for no reason at all. Though they were loud enough, no one else in the pool paid them any mind - the laughter was a strange and silly thing they had only for themselves.
“Why don’t you get in the water?” Ralph asked, once they’d calmed down. “It’s so hot. How can you stand it, just sitting there in the sun?”
“It’s not that hot.” Jack focused again on the spear in his lap. He noticed the blood of his cut was already drying up; it had been a shallow wound after all. “And I don’t care about heat anyway.”
He was kind of lying. He did feel he was wilting like a flower in an old woman’s windowsill garden. Though he also did find the special sort of misery heat brought reassuring, in a way. Not pleasant, but inexplicably important to him.
Ralph definitely didn’t believe him. “Okay,” was his response. “But why’re you sharpening a spear that was already sharp instead of swimming?”
He’d noticed? Opting not to think too hard about that, Jack resumed his work. He continued even though it had gotten so sharp the tip was just as likely to break off as get any sharper. It was hardly a choice; it was like he needed to. “I don’t like swimming.”
Ralph’s shock was almost horror. “What?!”
“I never thought it was fun, and - ”
“You’re sharpening a spear!”
“ - And being in the water is disorienting; it’s like you can’t move right at all. And after you’re done it’s terrible to get out of the water. You’re just wet.”
“Because you were in the water.”
“That’s right. It’s terrible.”
Throwing up his hands, Ralph half-turned away. ‘I give up.’ It was funny to see such a gesture from him. He seemed committed, though.
A moment of forced silence passed, and then another; Jack’s strikes strikes slowed, and then stopped. He tapped the rock on his leg. “Well, why do you like swimming?”
Ralph, still stubbornly turned away, relaxed at Jack’s question. He hesitated to answer - it looked like he was thinking hard about it.
Eventually he began, “Well, my daddy’s in the Navy.”
Jack huffed. “You’ve told us that.”
“No, listen.” As he shook his head, he turned to face Jack again. “I learned how to swim when I was young - like, really little - because he taught me. Then I practiced lots and lots because I wanted to be good at it. I wanted to join the Navy, too.”
“Wanted?”
“I still want to,” he quickly clarified, but once he’d said the words he looked unsure about them. “I mean, the Navy - ” His head sank down to the ground. “I don’t know.” He hid his face behind his arms.
They were both thinking about the same things. Newspaper headlines in bold black letters they couldn’t help but read, hushed conversations with unsettling weight they couldn’t help but overhear, countless tearful and solemn goodbyes at the airport as alarms blared that they couldn’t help but fear. Those things all led to one conclusion and Jack hated it. Again, he tapped the rock on his leg.
When he couldn’t take it any longer: “No, that’s not why you like it. That’s just why you’re crazy about it.”
Ralph raised his head to glare, eyes narrowed, at Jack. “I’m not crazy.”
Jack narrowed his eyes right back. “You’re a fish, then.”
“I’m not a fish!” He was shouting, but he was also trying not to laugh and pretty much failing at it.
“You swim like one. I’ve seen you - it’s not human.” He mimed a fish swimming with a hand, holding it in place for a moment - “From here - ” then sending it flying off into the distance - “to there.” He dropped his hand back down. Ralph was just laughing straight out at that point. “Just like that.”
When Ralph could catch his breath, he said, “Maybe you’re right.”
“You are a fish?”
“No! About why I like to swim. It’s not about the Navy. Being in the water, it’s just…It’s like a dream. Everything is good and you can have all the fun you want. He kicked his feet in the water, making little splashes, for effect. “A pool is your own little world.”
Jack was surprised to find he understood what Ralph meant. Your own little world…where everything went your way. The idea made him itch for more than he had been given. He wanted to take it.
Tilting his head up, he looked down to examine Ralph. All he said was, “Huh.”
Ralph didn’t say anything more to him after that - he was lost thinking, or maybe dreaming, about something, a bitter sort of wistful look on his face. So Jack returned to sharpening his spear once more. He imagined his first kill with renewed vigor now: where he would hit it, and how; the squeals it would make, driving away everything in a kilometer radius; the blood, he would let out the blood and it would flow; all the beautiful things.
Soon. He would go hunting that night; he had to. What was he sharpening a spear for, if not to use it?
He didn’t notice Ralph was moving before he was climbing out of the water, shaking out his hair. He stepped past Jack to pick his shirt out of the poolside pile. He pulled it over his head.
Jack paused. “Where are you going?”
“I remembered I need to go gather materials for the next shelter,” he said, “before it’s too late.”
Of course. Jack was getting familiar with Ralph’s constant conviction of responsibility. “Fill some more coconut shells up with water, too,” he said, prompted by the almost painful dryness becoming increasingly apparent in his throat. “It’s so hot that - ”
“I know,” Ralph interrupted, and he sounded almost weary. “I will.”
Jack watched Ralph turn and walk away in silence until a sudden urge struck him like a match on a box.
“Wait!” he called out.
Slowly, Ralph stopped and looked back. “What?”
He was blushing. Why was he blushing? “I’m going hunting later. Do you…Would you want to come with me? I could show you how.” Not that he could say he really knew how. He hadn’t killed anything yet, after all.
Ralph opened his mouth - no, it fell open - then he closed it. “I’m not…I can’t - ” His gaze dropped to the ground. At last he said, voice measured, “No. I told you - I’ve got work to do.”
He kept walking, faster, down the beach. It wasn’t long before he was slipping into the forest, out of sight.
Jack threw the rock down to the ground and stood up, gripping the spear tighter. The blush wouldn’t leave his face, only grew hotter, burned.
Whatever. He was going hunting.