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The cerulean ocean stretched out like clawing fingers, charging across the pale beige sand and tickling Jack’s sand dusted feet. The boy was gripping a blunt stick, indenting uneven chicken-scratched lines in the ground, his stomach pressed against the delicate warmed grains below. The wind taunted him and ruffled his red hair, which Jack had to push back with one dirty hand and a mildly irritated huff; his icy blue eyes were focused entirely on the forming image in front of him.
A wonky circle — like the shape of an over-ripen tangerine — followed by smaller circles near the front of the larger circle, forming a snout, a mouth, an eye — the face of a beast. Three strikes in the grains made the roughly triangular ear of the beast, like a dog-eared page of a book. Four pin-straight lines made its imperfect legs; it looked like four spears stabbing the beast’s underbelly. Finally, at the end of the circle sprouted a tail; curling scrawly, resembling lianas when they loop over each other in their path of crawling up a tree, or a cursive ‘e’. Satisfied with his creation, Jack grinned. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead with one arm, smearing more sand over his face.
In the reflection of the water in front of him, something caught his eye; it was a figure gradually approaching him. He whipped around, eyes widened, then met with familiar umber eyes that glittered a rich cinnamon brown in the setting sunlight. Upon realising that the figure was not a beastie but Simon, Jack scoffed and resumed with his drawing.
“Hello.” Simon said with tranquility unfitting for the fact they were currently stranded on an island.
“Hello.” Jack answered, stabbing his stick into the sand yet again to draw a wonky circle. He began clarifying that he was not afraid of Simon’s sudden appearance — a lie — and that he was no coward. “I wasn’t scared or anything, by the way. You just…”
“Materialised?” Simon offered.
“You could say that.” The hunter shrugged, adding limbs to the growing stick figure. “I wasn’t expecting you, that’s all.”
“May I join?” Simon asked softly, squatting down next to Jack. The hunter gave no response, instead began constructing another stick figure in the sand. Simon watched him — curious, but serene. Soon later boredom got the better of him and he stuck a finger into the warm sand experimentally, before gently indenting the ground.
Before he knew it, Jack had surrounded the beast with a wall of stick figures, equipped with a slit in the sand that represented a spear. He pivoted his head to survey Simon’s doodle, then sneered. “A lizard? Really?”
“Lizards are nice.” Replied Simon cooly, drawing whimsy flowers and stars around the lizard; considerably more appealing than Jack’s drawings. The boy laid on his stomach, kicking his legs with the innocence of a small child.
In contrast, Jack was now scribbling words — words of savagery — in a jagged, barely legible handwriting. Grains of sand flecked upwards every time the stick made violent contact with the ground. Jack’s eyes darted across the words, in a way similar to checking a maths test for any mistakes in the last ten minutes.
Kill the pig, his writing read. Cut its throat. Spill its blood.
Noticing Jack’s sudden stillness, Simon shuffled closer, gaze landing on the words in the sand. “You really want to kill a pig, don’t you?” He commented.
Yes, thought Jack. Yes I do.
He recalled the events of the first day, how his arm was raised, knife gleaming in a beam of sun, eyes locked firmly onto the target. The panic that seeped into his brain, drowning his thoughts in hesitation and raw terror of the pressure of taking a creature’s life. The way his entire body seemed to sway, his legs almost collapsing with how much they shook, the painful shrieks of the cornered piglet, echoing in his ears. Jack shivered at the flashback; the concept of killing still made him uneasy, but he will never admit that to anyone.
He was wasn’t a coward.
How Ralph had looked at him with an expression almost like a frown, like a teacher when you answer a question wrong — unimpressed. How his disappointed gaze had pressured him, that familiar flush of humiliation crawling up his neck and making his face hot, how he had felt like a fucking idiot. And Simon, his expression was unreadable with his raven black hair curtaining his soft, comforting eyes. It wasn’t apathetic like Ralph’s, but it wasn’t approval either, so Jack took it as failure; and it made him feel awfully shameful.
He was wasn’t a failure.
He couldn’t be a failure.
He was Jack fucking Merridew.
And the Merridews were not failures.
Or cowards.
It was impossible.
Before he knew it, tears were trickling down his freckled face and his shoulders were shaking. In his blurred vision he saw the glittering droplets drip, one by one, into the sediment below, seeping into the grains. Jack jabbed his stick brutally into the sand, as if it was the skin of a prey. He clenched his jaw and swallowed a sob, face bunching up into a desperate grimace, flicking his arm up to wipe his tears, smearing more sand onto his face simultaneously.
Simon simply observed, sympathy glinting in his eyes. A moment later Jack felt the pressure of Simon’s attention on him and snapped his head in the boy’s direction, sniffled before speaking. “I’m-I’m not crying,” He snivelled as another tear rolled down his freckled cheeks like morning dewdrops. “Only girls and toddlers cry!”
“But the littluns cry.” Simon pointed out quietly.
“They’re all milksops, everyone knows that.” The hunter retorted, followed by another sniffle and another gulp of air.
“I cry sometimes…” Simon’s voice was even quieter than before. The boy was focused on the ground, which he was drawing shallow circles into with his finger.
“Well you’re batty. You’re queer.” Jack snorted, hugging his legs and furrowing his eyebrows.
Simon opened his mouth to argue but no words came out so that his mouth hung agape for a few seconds, before he gave up and decided to set his eyes on the horizon instead. The wind whistled in the boys’ ears, which did not help Jack’s train of depressing thoughts.
“It’s alright, Jack.” Simon finally spoke in a gentle voice, placing a hand on Jack’s sunburnt back. The hunter jerked up at the sudden warmth spreading through his body. “It’s okay to cry. It’s better than holding it in.”
“Trust me, I’d know.” He added inaudibly, almost as if he was speaking to himself.
“How would you know?” Jack challenged, but scooted closer to Simon.
“Well,” A furrowed expression flashed on his face for a second, but vanished as quickly as it came. “My father….I never loved him. Mother had to suffer his beating and his shouting all day.”
He paused, sucking in a breath, then continued. “One day I tried to stand up for her. I shouted back, told him to stop. He shoved me onto the floor, and I bruised my head. I didn’t remember what he said.” His voice cracked. “All I remembered was the thrashing pain in my head and how I had cried myself to sleep that night.”
Jack winced at Simon’s story. “I get it,” he admitted. “My parents never paid much attention to me. When they do, all they ever talk about is how much of a disappointment I am and how much shame I brought to the family.” He spat bitterly and felt the tears threatening to spill again. “‘As the firstborn son of the Merridew family this is utterly unacceptable! It is expected of you that you get straight As! You don’t want to end up like the lower class, do you?’” Jack adopted a posh accent in mockery of his parents. “Blah blah blah, BULLSHIT!” He slammed his fist into the ground with a scowl, sending a shower of sand everywhere.
Simon, noticing the shine of tears in his piercing azureous eyes, stood up abruptly. He stumbled for a second as the wave of dizziness hit him, clutching his head. He offered a hand to Jack, who squinted at the sun that was casting dark shadows on Simon’s deep tan skin, eying the boy’s hand skeptically. “Come on, I want to bring you to…a place.” He smiled amicably.
“What place?”
“You know…a place in the jungle.” Simon hesitated, face turning red. “Where you said I was taken short.”
Jack barked out a laugh. “Were you not?” He asked, to which the other boy responded by scratching the back of his neck. The corners of Jack’s mouth lifted the slightest; he was glad for Simon’s presence but also embarrassed to take his hand. He quickly surveyed his surroundings for any snickering littluns, before extending a finger hesitantly, then placing his hand gently into Simon’s.
“There we go, you’re smiling again.” Simon grinned sweetly with crinkled eyes. “I like it when you smile.”
———彡🧡🐗💚彡———
The way to Simon’s…place was a lengthy trek. Occasionally a beam of sunlight would pierce through the canopy, making Simon glow; his eyes would resemble liquid gold poured into pools of amber, and Jack would stare admiringly. A monkey would laugh hysterically like reception class children in a playground, or the chirps and shrieks of tropical birds would make him pause, then he would wear a mask of being unfazed, as if the sudden scream didn’t catch him off guard at all. At some point, a fat creeper whacked Jack in the face and he fell on his bottom, blinking comically — startled. Then the boys would erupt into bursts of soft giggles.
Eventually, they reached a region where the plants bowed in their prayers and the vines hung low like curtains draped over a bed or a window; it was as if they were guarding something. To Jack, this was a dead end. But Simon, however, stepped forward. He angled his head so that his eyes were locked with Jack’s — for a second too long — then lightly brushed a great leaf aside to review a narrow tunnel. He faintly moved his head, beckoning Jack to enter first. Simon wormed in soon after Jack, and the great leaf bowed and screened the entrance again like a trapdoor.
The tunnel was incredibly narrow and claustrophobic, although short. The leaves around them tickled their backs and were so close to them that some of Jack’s sweat was wiped off him by the foliage. Mud squelched below his knees as his head emerged from the tunnel, into initially a pool of darkness. Then his eyes adjusted and he could see that he was in a clearing.
“I found this place on the first day,” Simon explained. “I come here when I miss home, or when I’m upset.” His eyes diverted from staring at the canopy above to settling on Jack, grinning subtly. “Maybe you can too.”
Jack could see why Simon liked this place. Here, the canopy loomed over them like a blanket, consuming the entire clearing in an oddly comforting shadow. Two noticeably tall trees impaled the canopy, but patched the holes with its own leaves and branches, towering over the vegetation in its competition to seize the sunlight; this left two robust trunks like pillars in a cathedral. Lianas inched up the pillars, strangling the massive trees but intertwined, looped, twisted until it formed a sturdy platform — some kind of hammock, a natural mattress. On the woven platform were fallen leaves the colour of autumn and patches of moss — little details Simon had added himself. All around the walls of vegetation, green candle-like buds were scattered all over, like Jack’s own freckles all over his body or the stars at night. Fuchsia flowers grew on the vines, clinging onto the main two trees, brightening the scenery.
“Huh,” Jack hummed, mildly amused. “It’s so…peaceful.”
“I know.” Responded Simon, who began climbing onto the hammock and flopping down onto it without difficulty, as if he always belonged.
“Is that thing even safe?” Jack asked skeptically, eyebrows furrowed.
“I dunno,” a yawn escaped Simon, and he was shifting to find a more comfortable position. “I mean, it’s hasn’t collapsed.”
“Yet.” Jack scoffed. “Bet it’s going to collapse in a second.”
Simon laughed softly. “I hope not,” he said. “Maybe you should try it out, before it — well, you know — collapses.”
Currently, Jack was standing awkwardly near the entrance, glaring at the hammock as if it had insulted him. “I guess I can try.”
Cautiously, he positioned his hand on the platform, feeling the woody vines, and frowned when it wobbled. Regardless, he leaned his weight on unsteady arms and hoisted a leg, heaved himself onto the hammock.
The woven thing gave a violent sway — like a nest swing in a park — and Jack’s bony arms instinctively reached out to stop his fall, and his hands conveniently landed on either side of Simon. As a result, Jack was hovering awkwardly above Simon — inches from his face — and he felt heat rushing to his face, flushing so red that his freckles disappeared, once he registered what had happened. It was like time slowed down, both boys were paralysed with astonishment; Jack could feel Simon’s warm breath on his cheek while his mind screamed at him to scramble away and pretend it never happened. His eyes were locked with Simon’s welcoming brown eyes and he did not wish to pull away. He sucked in a quick breath and acted impulsively, smashed their lips together in a tentative kiss. He felt his teeth knock against the other’s. Jack saw Simon’s eyes widen, crimson blooming over his cheeks and felt his own grow warmer. His hand found Simon’s hair, and he was beginning to tug on the black strands gently. His heart was thumping aggressively, like a caged animal wanting to be set free. A clamour rose in Jack’s head, throwing words at his skull like a thrashing beast — this was wrong, this was so wrong — but he didn’t care right now. All he wanted to do was cherish this moment, for it may never happen again.
After a good few seconds, Jack finally pulled away, breathing heavily. “Sorry.” He muttered, looking away and wishing the ground would swallow him.
Simon, who was also breathing intensely, face redder than a tomato, yanked Jack’s shoulders, closing the narrow distance between their faces. Jack choked on his own spit, then his eyes softened and he leaned into the kiss. He was — yet again — the first to pull away, feeling the warmth from Simon’s lips still lingering on his.
Simon finally spoke, caressing Jack’s face in his hands. “It’s alright,” He whispered, then smiled — one Jack did not realise until now comforted him more than any word could.
“For-for a second I thought you would start hating me..” Jack confessed.
“Why would I?”
Simon seemed reluctant, paused for a second, before wrapping his arms warily around the hunter. He pulled Jack closer, and Jack let him, because he himself had wanted this too. So they laid there, limbs tangled like the vines below them, forehead to forehead, until the moon rose and the stars twinkled, and into slumber.
“Do not tell anyone about this or I will kill you.” Jack hissed, burying his scowling face into the crook of Simon’s neck.
Simon let out a gentle laugh. “Don’t stress, worried warrior.” He reassured. “I won’t.”