A cautionary tale to show that hot sunny climates are not all their cracked up to be!

Feedback welcome.

Michael lay on his stomach, feeling the sun on his back and neck. Beneath him the deck pitched and yawed gently in time with the mild swell of the ocean. Cass lay prone beside him, already browning and ripening in the early morning rays, wearing her favourite swimsuit, the apple green one with the pale lilac trim.

He opened one eye and raised his head squinting slightly. A strip of blue sky sheared across the horizon, the lapping water below it dissolving into a mosaic of piercing shards. Already the heat was beginning to sting his flesh. He licked dry lips and pictured a tall glass of iced water, moisture trickling down the tumblers sides like sweat. He recalled Cass’s words in those first few days as they lounged on the deck, sailing between the islands.

‘Oh I could just lay here and drift away forever,’ she'd sighed as a radio played faintly in the background, a lively tropical mix of plucky guitars, flutes and bongos’. A gull, hovering on the updraft just off the deck rail, shimmied like a carnival reveller.

‘You’re not the only one.’ He'd muttered lazily.

They had spent the morning exploring the nearest island, poking around palm fringed markets and drinking at beach side bars. Later, mildly drunk they lay in the afternoon sun as the yacht ploughed on through turquoise seas towards the next piece of land.

Cass had turned onto her back, her oiled body flashing in the sun like a minnow. ‘Captain Joe was telling me that the coconuts fall into the sea here and get washed up all the way onto the coast of Britain.’

‘Yep, it’s the gulf stream that carries them,’ Michael had replied sagely. Amazed that this paradise of blue skies and caramel skinned people could have even the most tenuous link with their own mundane island of red bricks, dingy pavements and dish water skies.

‘I’m dreading going home already.’ She’d murmured ruefully.

Michael had chuckled. ‘Let’s make a wish that we can drift away forever.’

‘Please, whoever’s listening…’ She'd cried out mock dramatically to the clear skies above the boat.

His mind came back to the here and now with a lurch.

The slightest of breezes simpered across the deck. Michael gave a sigh, feeling his skin tighten and goose bump. He arched his body like a cat eager for more. Then it was gone, the heat blooming across his back again. Sweat trickled and played on his skin.

This trip was to have been the holiday of a lifetime. Hiring their own private yacht and crew to go cruising between the islands for a fortnight. It had cost a small fortune. The fifth night had marked their tenth wedding anniversary.

He gave a twisted, mournful smile at the memory of it.

He’d dressed in a tuxedo, she in a plain cream dress, it’s elegant simplicity the perfect foil for her dark, tanned beauty. Captain Joe and the rest of the crew had set up a little table on deck and served them wine and an entrée of oysters with sword fish as the main course. The evening had been perfect, jazz from a hi-fi languishing in the balmy silken air, stars, perfectly complementing the diamonds at her ears and throat, mirrored in a sea as flat and soft as smoked glass.

After the meal the crew retired and left them dancing on deck. Locked against each other, he'd dropped a kiss on her neck, tasting the heat and perfume of her skin. They'd danced into the small hours. Gently swaying on a gently rolling deck over a gently lilting sea. The whole world in perfect synchronisation.

‘I love you!’ They'd murmured to each other.

It’s been worth every penny. Michael had thought serenely.

And that had been the last good night.

Now he dared not turn his head to look at her. She lay rigid, not speakin. She hadn’t spoken since last night.

He felt a spiteful, mewling guilt gnaw hungrily at his heart.

The rhythmic lapping of the water did it’s best to sooth him but his mind fretted and his head ached. Too much sun did that to him.

We should never have come here!

My fault!

The temptation rose again. It floated enticingly in his mind, shameful and compelling.

Appalled that he could harbour such thoughts when she was lying just feet from him, he plunged his hand into the relative cool of the water in a bid to gain some kind of relief.

The moment he did so a dark triangle rose from the depths and scythed the water with a hiss. He moaned, pulling his hand out hurriedly, the blood from the wound in his arm was like a beacon.  The crusted gash split every time he moved, he had nothing to bind it with.



They’d been sitting on the deck in just their swimsuits, letting the evening breeze cool their sun baked skin when the explosion  had ripped through the boat. Blown overboard they’d trod water, weakening, adding their voices to the drowning cries that rose in the night around them. Then a jagged piece of decking had floated past. By the time they’d scrambled onto it the ocean was silent.

At first he had tried to reassure her as she lay gasping and sobbing. Rescue would come and if not they were bound to wash up on one of the many islands. They'd spent that first night huddled against each other, watching and listening for the tell tale signs of salvation, lights, the chugging of a helicopter or rythmic growl of a ships engine. But the early dawn had revealed an amethyst ocean stretching barren and empty in all directions and Michael began thinking nervously about gulf streams and coconuts on cold grey shores.

His mind conjured blonde beaches and leaden waters bordered by hills as soft as felt and clouds the colour of swansdown drifting in the cool air. How good it would be to open his eyes and see that now, feel the cool, briny gusts against his skin.

But when he lifted his head he saw only a hard implacable slab of blue and the white blister of the sun shimmering above, burning the skin from his back.

His dry bloated tongue pushed numbly between cracked lips. He turned his head and clamped them to the leaking wound on his arm, desperately sucking at the coppery salty liquid but the sensation triggered the awful desire once more. Almost without thinking he raised his gaze and looked straight at Cass. She stared back at him, through him, beyond him. Her eyes as blue, glassy and empty as the ocean around them. The sunlight glimmered playfully against the irises, giving a cruel illusion of life.

How long had it been now? Three days…four. How much longer could he last without food…without liquid.

He looked at her still body, the curving flesh brown and baked in the sun like meat on a spit. He felt ravenous, parched, maddened. He imagined what it would be like to bite into the soft flesh, to feel the fluids within her trickle against his withered lips.

How much longer could he last!

They could drift away like this forever.