Feels good to post again.

Photographer

The island had one spot of sand. Waves picked up by wind out in the sea would either lap against it or crash on the jagged rocks. Their spray and salt would whip up into the air, covering the entire island, barely three hundred meters long and ten meters above. The concave shore and spit of land gave the island no discernible shape, and unless you were pushed against it, no ship would notice it. A lump lost among even little waves, barren of life. Only cracked rock with the occasional lost sea creature, trying to make its way back to the water along the white line paths.

My clothes and beard had long been coated in the salt. The t-shirt that protected me from the sun had faded from its red to a shallow pink, stiff with the white remains of the sea. My hair stuck out all over the place in a shapeless mass twisted with my beard. The rusted lawn chair creaked as I moved in my sleep, trying to get through the hottest part of the day. It beat down on me, turning my skin brown and making it peel.

Somewhere out on the water, the wind picked up and pushed a wave forwards, making it tower past the shallows and crash down on the sand, pushing it towards the island before taking it away. I woke up to the sound, and felt the water lapping my toes. My heart raced, but I didn't move. In the distance, there was a dot above the waves, slowly making its way towards me.

 Against the sun I could see the silhouetted wings moving up and down with my breath. It was a lone bird, trying to make its way to my island. I stood up and grabbed the camera beside me. I focused in on the dot, but noticed the battery meter. I had left it on in my sleep, and now it was almost dead. I turned the camera off and left it there, heading towards my tent. My equipment was up there, including my spare batteries.

My camp was on the highest part of the island, a little hill that was free of the waves, but not their misty reach. I pulled the tarp off my equipment and dug through the box, pulling out lens and memory cards until I found a battery. I stopped on the hill, and with my vantage I saw that the shape was lower on the horizon, and to my dismay, alone. I slowly walked down the hill to my camera, putting the new battery in and focusing back on the bird.

It was a Gygis alba, or White Tern. It had probably been flying when it was caught by a particularly strong wind, and pushed out to sea. Probably from Australia. It was hoping that my little island would give it some food, but from the way it's wing strokes were faulting and being pulled closer to the ocean, I knew it wouldn't.

I watched on the screen as the bird slowed, it's wings gaining weight and trying to pull it down. Salt had stained its white plumage, so with ache I watched the once pure bird fly. The eyes were fixed upon me, shadowed in black rings like the makeup of a dancer on her last act trying desperately to match her movements to the hard timing of the metronome. The bird twisted around the vents and waves, making its way to my island, but she fell ever closer to the water, her days without break finally taking their toll.

To be so close to land, to have the chance to rest, maybe poke into a crack and feed on some creature. That was hope incarnate for the bird. But the water was so cold, and her wings so heavy. The bird crawled closer and closer to land, below it the vultures of the sea swimming, aware of its fate. I stood up and walked to the beach, watched as the bird skimmed the water with its feet. From out of the depths, a silvery flash leapt out, and the bird was brought to the ocean.

It wasn't why I had that camera, but they could use the footage. Perhaps do some piece on migratory birds, taking away all context and just putting it as some bird flying from one place to another. Completely subjective, not even talking about its fate or what brought it to my lonely island in the Indian ocean.

I had not seen my subject yet in my stay, nor any bird except for the Tern. The Ardea Guttatus was what I was there for. The Spotted Heron. Once a year, the males would leave Australia for my island, stay for a day, and then return, back to Australia to mate. No females make the journey, and it seems to be on a whim that they leave, no link to season or weather. It's a mystery to ornithology, one that I had hoped to capture for the first time. Some ritual decision for who mated with who or some other reason I was unsure of. But I had not seen yet.

---

Eventually, the sun went down and I headed up to camp to have a dinner. Pulling apart my food stores, I eventually found a can of vegetables and turned on my stove. It flickered in the sea wind for a bit before the flame matured, able to withstand the harsh blow. Salt crusted the element, and I could taste the spray. It turned the flame orange, eventually fading out to its proper blue. I put on the can and went over to my equipment box.

I put the phone down and went over to eat dinner. The broth stained the beard around my mouth, but I finished every last bit and laid down to look up at the rising moon.

The phone was my only contact with my work. I used it to check in every night, as well as to ask for new supplies when mine were running low. Even without checking in, it would be awhile until they noticed. There were too many people out there like me, filming bugs and trees, to notice one missing. The giant crate beside me had just been dropped off, full of dehydrated fruit and canned vegetables. The people on the boat had been doing the usual rounds, and wouldn't be back for a few weeks even if I did call. If I didn't no one would probably realize for a month, or more. It was the same deal with them, they had too many villages and communities to supply with food to worry about one guy living on his own. Without the phone, I was trapped on my island, and even if my birds did come, I wouldn't be able to radio anyone to pick me up.

I crawled into my tent and sleeping bag, putting the broken phone beside me.

---

The last meeting with the boat had been three days before. There boat was anchored off shore, while a small motor boat had come in with three people on it. A crate six feet tall was the only passenger.

“Welcome to my island” I said, walking forward into the water and helping pull the boat onto the beach. I had been watching the boat for the last three hours as it made it's slow progress to the island.

The three men climbed out of the boat, one making his way towards me while the other two began untying the crate. The man's mustached face broke out in a smile as he extended a hand towards me.

“Mr. Wallace, sir, we have your food. Here's the list, sir. Is there anything else I can do for you?” He said, close enough for me to make out the white lines on mustache.
“No, my friend, I don't think so.” It was always him who came and dropped off the food, and I made my best effort to return his cheeriness. Even if it did get harder every time.

In the distance, I heard a whoop, and looking past the men on the beach, I saw all the crew on the boat looking at me. Each of them were doing various rude gestures, most of them sexual, all the while groaning as if trying to open a jar.

I watched them for a minute, before turning back to my friend.

“Hey, actually, would you mind telling them to stop doing that?” I said as I handed back the clipboard, not even looking at the food list.

“Of course, Sir. I'll do just as you say.” He said happily, signaling for the two other men to take the crate off the boat and move it to my camp.

He always said that when I asked, and he never told them. Or at least, they never listened. But he always seemed happy to say he would.

“This is such a beautiful island, Sir. You're lucky to be here.”

“Yeah, it is, isn't it?”

When the crate was up in my camp, and my friend had shaken my hand like he always did, they climbed back into their boat to go to the next community. Or maybe it was another guy, living on an island, waiting for tortoises to lay their eggs or something. I had never asked what the other stops were.

I watched their boat leave from my camp, leaning on the crate, the crew on their break looked back at me.

---

I reached my arm back and taking two steps forward I threw the radio. It sailed through the air unhinged until hitting the water, bubbles marking its grave. Bits of rust flew off as I sat back down in my chair, creaking as I leaned to one side to grab my bottle. I crushed the plastic and it cracked like dry earth while I drank from it, the amber liquid slowly disappearing in the noon light above me. The horizon was unbroken, and putting the bottle down, I fixed my eyes on it. Waves occasionally obscured parts, but no fish jumped and no boats puttered by. Reaching down, I picked up the flare gun beside the bottle and leaned back in the chair. I opened it, checked that it hadn't gotten wet, and saw a bit of salt in the mechanism. I licked my finger and rubbed it off, tasting the sea's breath.

For two weeks I had tried to fix the radio, hitting it apart with a rock to clean the salt out of it. It pervaded every crevice, forcing pieces apart and cracking through the solder. I would spend the day trying to clean it out, but always there would be more hidden under some plastic or metal. When it was too dark, I would put it in a bag in my tent, but always the next morning the salt would be back, trapped inside. White lines traced the exterior, and were rough against my hands as I held it.

Eventually I took the entire thing apart, pulling the pieces out one by one and cleaning them. I lined them up like soldiers, but when I went to put them back in they wouldn't fit.

The pieces were strewn around the chair, green dots on the smooth rock. My camera was beside me, no longer obstructing my view of the ocean, the battery long dead. It pointed up into the sun, the light reflecting off the lens towards the sea.

With two weeks gone, I had at least two more until the next boat would come. When I had been waiting for my birds, time had gone fast with words and music. But despair was what prompted me to wait now. Time didn't move any slower or faster, but each distraction seemed frivolous, unimportant in case it stopped me from seeing some boat. I wasn't anywhere near starving or ship wrecked, but still the thought of either was enough to make me worry. But not enough to make me nervous.

I grabbed a can from the pile beside my chair, and opened it, pouring the vegetables into my mouth and letting the syrup get stuck in my beard between the seaweed and barnacles.

I emptied the can, and threw it at a pyramid of empty ones, knocking them all over. Sighing, I stood up and walked over to stack them up again.

---

Beyond my little camp, tide glided up and down the sand, covering a crab for a moment before exposing it to the sun again. The crab didn't move as the water pushed against it, claws up in the air, slowly opening and closing. The water came up again, and receded, and the crab darted to the nearest rusted rock. It dug under it, hiding its red shell from the light. I reached down and picked the rock up.

The crab felt my shadow and dashed to the next rock and squeezed under it. I pushed the rock out of the way, and it froze. I dropped the rock on the sand beside it, and the crab moved towards the center of the island. Throwing the rock in the ocean, I stepped after it.

It moved around the beach, gliding across the sand even as it got caught between my toes. Eventually it made its to the water, and rode out with the tide. I splashed through the water, trying to keep it in sight, but lost it and was left looking out past my little island, staring at the horizon, half blinded by the reflected sunlight. The tide lapped at my ankles, cooling me down.

A sudden wave knocked me off my feet, pushing me into the shallows. It receded and I was lying on my back, a thin layer of sand left on me. I lifted my head and saw another wave coming. It rose up from somewhere out in the ocean, and beyond its crested head I saw the body of a whale leaving the ocean. I got up and let the water push against me, planting my feet and stumbling forwards from the powerful suction. The whale breached again, and blew a column into the air.

I saw her long narrow head, and her single, small fin. It sat on the arch of her back, right before it turned into her tail, the dark gray unchanged along her body.

Her last ripple brush against my legs, and so she dived down, into the water, her fluke waving to me before disappearing beneath the water. A rare site, for when Eden's whales dive, their flukes are hidden.

---

I watched as the birds approached the island. A giant flock, they constantly moved in formation, air streaming over their shape as they searched for the nearest vent to keep them up. Their white forms silhouetted against the blue sky, too far away to make any details out. But I knew the plumage around the neck would be a darker colour, black spots dotting it. Above that, a long beak, designed for picking fish up from the water. They would have fed on the way here, stopping at the occasional tip of land to rest and feed. The Spotted Heron were in no rush to make it to my island.

My chair had long since collapsed in the wind and waves that splashed the island. I was sitting on the bare rock, my shirt off, straining my eyes in the harsh light to watch the birds. A heron swooped down as it approached the island, grabbing a fish from the water as it jumped out, the jaws covering it as the throat expanded to let it in. The fish slid slowly down, to dissolve in the stomach.

My camera sat beside me, and I grabbed it and hurried to camp. There, I grabbed my lens and batteries, before running back to my perch. The tripod was already there, knocked over by the wind at some point. I stood it up and put the camera on before replacing the battery and turning it on. The light flashed three times and I stared at the image. White snow covered the birds and ocean, obscuring most of scenery in favour of winter. The birds were just blurry dots in the storm. I focused in on the birds, trying to get of the static as I compared the camera with what I saw above it. The snow became a mist, but still it persisted, just as the birds, now sharp and in focus, were barely visible.

I pulled the lens off the camera, replaced it with another, looked through it before I put another on. Each showed the same static. When I went to switch to another, I smudged the glass. I stopped to clean the lens, and looking at it, I saw the salt, caught behind the glass. All the other lens showed the same thing, the ocean having a finger on each, obscuring its own beauty.

The lens's were cast on the ground, surrounding me and my camera as I sat on the rock, trying to figure out what to do. I looked up and saw that the birds hadn't faltered at all, still traveling at the same speed towards me. The camera looked too, a blurry image catching the tips of the waves, but no birds. It was meaningless. I stood up to turn off the camera, when looking down, I saw one my lens had been cracked. It had bounced when I dropped it, a small fracture leaving it useless. I remembered my last lens. I had left it unopened, as it had a small chip on the edge left by the manufacturer. In my years since I had first received the camera, I hadn't used it. But now I ran up to my camp, finding the lens hidden under unworn clothes and books. I tore it open and looked through it, finding a clear sight. Vacuum sealed, it hadn't be touched by the sea winds.

I fit it on to the camera, and kicking the cans away, I moved the tripod higher up. The birds were clear and focused as I slowly zoomed in, began recording their strokes up and down.

The wings moved in the wind, feathers flying up and down, slight adjustments changing the height and speed of the flock. Together, they dived and twisted over the water, never halting or breaking formation. I looked closer, and saw their stained plumage, the spots themselves dotted with salt. They had flown without stopping, straight to this island, getting their food as they went. Their pure white coat was green with rust and plants. Their long legs tucked under them, some with strips of seaweed. Still, they moved without falter, making their way towards the island. Their bodies were covered in salt, and the sounds of it grinding on itself made me shudder. The head of the flock was closest, and I moved the camera to him.

His eyes were dark, an orange ring circling the pupil. Little red lines made their way through the orange, but always stopped short of the pupil. Why he was the lead, why he was the only one who wore its salt and dirt with dignity, I could only guess from the eyes. Determination lived in those eyes, and as I watched, the whole flock rode the sea wind with it.

I stepped back from the camera, leaving it running, to stare at the growing birds with my eyes. I stared around at the island, past my broken chair and pile of cans, to my plastic bottle. I walked over to it and finished the last drops left inside. I dropped it, and it bounced off the flare gun beside me before rolling down to the sand, where a wave pushed it against a jagged rock. I didn't notice.

The orange against the rock had caught my attention. I picked up the flare gun, and looked over at the birds. I open it, found the flare that had sat there for since the radio broke. I clicked the flare gun closed, before pointing it above me and pulling the trigger. Nothing happened, and when I opened the gun, I saw that sand had clogged it. I cleaned it out, before aiming it above me again and shooting it.

The luminous dart shot up, leaving a trail of smoke and blinding light. It sat beside the sun like a jealous twin, before puttering out. The water splashed off shore. I looked back at the birds and saw that they had changed their course, darted a bit to the left, but still approaching the island.

I sighed and reached into my pocket, pulling the flares out. I stared at them on my palm, clinking together as they moved around. I took one, placed it in the gun, and put the other two back in my pocket. Reaching out, I aimed the flare just off the birds and shot it.