14
vine swinger
His knees hurt. Picking wood for a campfire, he slipped and landed square on them. No small thing for a man who weighs... who knows? He didn't know before the island, certainly doesn't now.
He wants a haircut. The Hugo Reyes that was cool enough for this style is goneŠ 'cause, man, it's just impractical. Some nail scissors are around somewhere. He should ask JackŠ
At night he wonders if years of living on the island will whittle him down, like in that Tom Hanks movie. Maybe he'll become like Tarzan in the Bizzaro world, Hurley swinging through the vines.
words are like leaves
When she speaks, her words are few and hushed. A few words for Jin, when he will listen, and no more.
During her English classes, her instructor had to coax syllables out of her mouth. Speak, she would say, so you can learn. Desperate, she let the phrases, the sentences, the paragraphs stream out of her. And she learned.
The night before her planned escape, she made Jin his favorite meal and together they sat and ate in silence. She preferred it.
Kate speaks. Too many words; they make Sun dizzy. She plants seeds and listens, hoping soon to reply.
the safety of objects
Sawyer figures he's the richest man on the island, object-wise. He thinks the idea should tickle him more than it does. People want. They won't leave you alone. If they don't ask nice, they threaten. A briefcase, a watch, medicine what's he, a one-man fucking charity?
He's got billfolds and watches and hard cash and he'll take it when he goes.
If he goes. He pats the note in his pocket. Still there.
Like hummingbirds, they gather up nectar, build nests. He's got better things to do. He counts, and waits, until he's the richest man off the island too.
the hunter
John Locke isn't sure which he prefers: his legs, or civilization. He wonders whether leaving the island might mean losing his legs, and the prospect frightens him. Makes him love the island. Makes him wish the island were the entire world, monsters, and all.
They should all love the island. They should all see how special the island is, how magical. It's not a burden to sleep under the stars, to catch your own food. It's what nature intended. When he hunts boar, when he winsŠ They should all know. Locke thinks he may be the one to teach them.
little boy lost
He practices with the knife when he can. When Dad's not watching, and he and Vincent have free roam of the island. He feels like he can do anything with that knife in his hands. Be like Mr. Locke even.
Mr. Locke is smart, and strong, and a good hunter. Walt wants to be all those things, and he wants to see them in his father. But Michael disappoints, has no secrets to share, not like Mr. Locke. Mr. Locke's secret is important. Walt twirls his knife.
The blade flies through the air and hits its mark, true dead center.
sea wall
She's starting to get sick of the ocean. She's always liked it, wished to have a house right on the beach one day, but now she thinks if she ever gets off the island, if she gets a chance, she'll find herself a house as far away from a coastline as possible.
If she gets a chance.
The island feels like prison. Even in its beauty, it's oppressive, and dangerous. Some of the other inmates seem restless too.
But Kate will do what she can with what she's been given. She'll play nice and she'll get by. She always does.
cartographer
He keeps the maps and compass because even a map drawn by a crazy woman and a compass that doesn't work are a relief in a place like this.
The maps are rolled tightly, tied together by string and placed beneath his head as he sleeps. He will not trust the others so much. Rousseau may have been crazy, but he will not underestimate her knowledge. Sixteen years on this islandŠ Sayid cannot fathom it.
So, he keeps his worthless compass in his pocket and he unrolls the maps, and he speculates and theorizes. And he waits for the madness.
memory's trick
She's glad to have the diary back, to recognize something in this place. The writing is familiar; it's hers. The events are not, and it frightens her, all that she's forgotten. (Jack, the doctor, would say 'blocked out', and she doesn't like that. That she's had to block things out.)
Charlie frightens her, too. She reads about him in her diary: kind Charlie, gentle Charlie. Then she remembers the look on his face, the determination to end that man's lifeŠ
She wants to remember. Wants to remember when Charlie wasn't holding a gun, but an imaginary jar of peanut butter.
god complex
Jack doesn't want to be leader. Not as much as the others think he does. And he worries. He catches himself biting his nails sometimes; he grinds his teeth when he sleeps.
He knows they are capable people. They're smart, talented even. They can carry water, and fish, and even mend broken bones. And he worries that it is not enough, on the island, to be a doctor, skilled. Just as it is not enough to know how to hunt, fish, or read maps. They need more. They need one another. And this scares Jack most of all.
have/have not
Shannon does not think they will be leaving the island soon. She wonders if they will spend years, forever, there. She thinks of all she'll miss, of all she won't have. She thinks of the ragged nails and the cracked skin.
She glances over a map and forgets about all she'll miss.
Sayid tastes like almonds, which is ridiculous because there isn't an almond anywhere on the island. But she's found the flavor in his mouth. She waits for it each time their lips meet and when they part she can still inhale the scent, feel it prickling her tongue.
cycles
Jin tried to escape the stink of fish that rose from his father when he arrived home from a long day's haul, worked hard for nice things, for the right woman.
Now Jin too smells of fish. And his woman is no longer the woman he'd thought.
She talks to the others in a way he cannot, and he feels like a child. He cannot speak; his tongue pushes back words, sentences that threaten to spring out, never to be understood.
After a long day of fishing and working on a raft, Jin returns to the camp, stinking of fish.
fervor
When no one is looking, Charlie prays. He prays for the safety of Claire and her baby. He prays that they'll be rescued. He prays that if they are, he will not fall back to his old ways.
Charlie's prayers are not hollow gestures to an uncaring God. He believes fervently and with an ardor of spirit. It is, perhaps, the one thing about his character he is never surprised about: his fervor. Fervor for women, for drugs, for redemption, for revenge, for salvation. He cannot remember a time when he did not need fervently, painfully.
It is his way.
on building
If he works long enough, maybe he'll forget where he is. Maybe he'll forget that his son is a stranger and that people around him are dying and that the raft he's putting together never seems sturdy enough.
He wakes up at night, coughing, from a dream of drowning, being submerged in crystal blue water, seeing the surface above and never reaching it.
Walt is never with him.
Across from him, Jin works silently, relentlessly. Michael does not know how to speak to Jin, but he knows what he's thinking. He knows what drives him to build a better raft.
the great escape
For a moment, an elastic, seemingly endless moment, he is weightless. He is free falling and he can see the sky and the trees through the cockpit. Objects are floating beside him. There! Look, it's the Virgin Mary!
He hits the ground.
And next there is Jack, standing in front of him, and Boone knows. He knows, too, because his chest is on fire, and because taking in air is hard, so hard.
Boone is leaving the island. He's leaving alone, without Shannon. Without a body. He's leaving for good and never coming back. He hopes he never comes back.