I sat comfortably in first-class, listening to Beethoven with my Bose headphones, and stared at a help button right below the overhead compartment. It was labeled “Press button for Help”. Suddenly, the cabin siren blared. The flight attendant motioned for everyone to keep their head down and brace for impact. With perfect timing, the beginning of Beethoven’s 5th symphony accompanied the twin engines catching fire. It created an aerial diving sound that I still hate to this day. From my fetal position, I watched in horror as the skies outside the window view rotated ninety degrees clockwise, and the sound of the plane diving became deafening. The 5th Symphony’s familiar exposition hammered out again, and the Captain screamed into the intercom to brace for impact. My biggest fear was about to come true. The plane suddenly lurched forward, and I saw my family disappear into the seats in front of them. I felt a lump in my throat, and then nothing.

The chemical smell of fumes gently nudged me awake. I quickly sat up and saw that I was in the uneven embrace of a beige colored beach. I squinted and covered my eyes from the warm sun rays, and stared into the wide blue yonder. I looked around and saw some seashells, the breeze combed my hair gently. About twenty meters from me, I saw the wreckage of the plane. A trail of smoke from the still hot remnants floated up. I slowly shuffled towards what was left of the plane.

The wrecked plane was an ostrich. The tail end pointed straight up into the air. Its nose and cockpit was stuck several meters into the sand. When I got close enough, I plopped down onto the soft white sand and grieved. The tears tiptoed down my chubby cheeks and plunged down into the sea of white sand. They choreographed a good bye performance for my family, to express what my school grade vocabulary couldn’t. When they were done, my natural instincts took over. I had to survive. It was amazing how my body and adrenaline complemented each other. My feet moved and my arms pumped back and forth. I searched the wreckage. I found one food ration, two bottles of water, and a few charcoaled human body parts. They were scattered on a burning black pit like a barbecue that no one wanted to attend. Right next to it was the cockpit.

My initial thought was to use the radio transmitter. But the machine was smashed beyond recognition. The flips and switches were scrunched together so tightly that you would have thought they just ate a lemon. I found the help button lodged in the sand right besides my feet. It took me back to a previous life.

I snapped out of it and gave up. I was hungry so I quickly devoured my one and only food ration. As dusk turned to night, the temperature dropped and the island became a refrigerator. I woke up the next morning and saw a plane buzzing overhead. I yelled my lungs out but to no avail. I didn’t find any flare guns, nor any SOS pyrophoric signal materials. The only thing I thought of was to write the word ‘Help’ on the sand. I was a meerkat of the highest order. My legs carried me as far as they could and I started to dig sand. With every push, the letter H became more visible. With every dig, its bevel became deeper. The next thing that floated over the horizon will have no problem seeing ‘Help’ on the beach. I ran to the nearest cliff and rolled boulders onto the letters’ font space. That way the waves could not take away my hard work.

After two days, there were still no signs of any planes. I was famished, and I started to hallucinate. I stumbled around the wreckage like a drunken shaman, waving his magic arms, and trying to summon hallucinated gods. Then, I smelled it. It was meaty, with a smoky afterthought. I rubbed my eyes and couldn’t believe my eyes. Sitting perfectly scattered on a blackened barbecue pit were shanks of aromatic barbecued meats. The crispy skin glistened underneath the hot afternoon sun. Sirloin, chuck, rib, round, they were all there. Some even wrapped in cloth to keep in the moisture. The red hue of the fire hiding in the charcoals emanated ever so often, gently massaging and spit roasting the flesh. Intact blood within the meat slowly cooked, and became streaks of blurred, dimmed red running from the bone to the trotter. A deep sensation from my stomach whispered, and I felt my animal instincts pry my jaws open. I sprinted over, grabbed a trotter, and ripped into its flesh. Like the cartoons that we love on Saturday mornings, I dunked the meats into my mouth and pulled out the bone, savoring every morsel.

When I had my fill, I laid down exhausted on the pristine white sand. My brain was alive again, and I stared into the beautiful blue skies. The cotton clouds shifted from one animal to the next. Then I heard a whisper. The voice forgiving, and paternal. It whispered that life was ordained by God, and whatever we did to sustain life will be forgiven. I sat up and scanned the skies quickly but saw no trace of a higher being. As if on cue, I heard the all too familiar sound of Beethoven. The piano notes that haunted me the last few days suddenly sounded different. The music got louder, and I heard the staccato of a plane’s rotor as it landed behind the wreckage.

My biggest fear is to be stuck on an island. And I now know the repercussions. I lost my prized possessions. I lost my beloved family. But most of all I lost my human innocence. It is something I can never get back, and I have to live with the consequences. Losing my family pains my heart. Losing my possessions pain my body. But losing my human dignity and having to sustain myself with the flesh of fellow men have morally decayed my spirit. It removed me of my human senses, and I now dwell in the dark abyss of hell.

Help.