The Island
It had taken a long time. The undersea volcano from the mantle plume had broken the surface and continued to climb until it was a steep, rocky peak. It slowly became dormant, waiting until it chose to start erupting again to form another island in a different place as the Pacific tectonic plate moved slowly North over the plume.
Nature’s terra forming army then set about changing the raw island material. Coral polyps started building their home around the island and, as a by product, created a coral reef ringing the island and protecting it from the harsh waves and storms. A lagoon grew behind the protection of the reef and became a haven for fish that drifted in on the ocean currents, liked the place and stayed to bring up their families and have many children. Birds from other islands dropped guano on the sides of the peak creating soil and containing seeds which grew in the rich volcanic soil fertilised by their droppings. The plants growing on the hillsides trapped the sea mists and the winds rising up over the mountain cooled and dropped their moisture. Let there be rain. Streams started running down the hillsides, eroding the volcanic ash, creating dark clefts and gorges where ferns and the damp, drippy, creepy animals thrived. Coconuts drifted in before the wind and started a grove along the shore. The waves broke down the volcanic rock, beating against the black cliffs, turning the micas and feldspars into soft clays leaving the quartz grains to form beautiful sweeping beaches behind the cerulean lagoon. The clays were washed down the hills to form deep drifts of top soil. All this was done in a blink of a geological eye or longer than the history of humans on the planet, depending on your point of view. What was eighty million in the four thousand six hundred million years of the life of the planet?
Nature’s terra forming army then set about changing the raw island material. Coral polyps started building their home around the island and, as a by product, created a coral reef ringing the island and protecting it from the harsh waves and storms. A lagoon grew behind the protection of the reef and became a haven for fish that drifted in on the ocean currents, liked the place and stayed to bring up their families and have many children. Birds from other islands dropped guano on the sides of the peak creating soil and containing seeds which grew in the rich volcanic soil fertilised by their droppings. The plants growing on the hillsides trapped the sea mists and the winds rising up over the mountain cooled and dropped their moisture. Let there be rain. Streams started running down the hillsides, eroding the volcanic ash, creating dark clefts and gorges where ferns and the damp, drippy, creepy animals thrived. Coconuts drifted in before the wind and started a grove along the shore. The waves broke down the volcanic rock, beating against the black cliffs, turning the micas and feldspars into soft clays leaving the quartz grains to form beautiful sweeping beaches behind the cerulean lagoon. The clays were washed down the hills to form deep drifts of top soil. All this was done in a blink of a geological eye or longer than the history of humans on the planet, depending on your point of view. What was eighty million in the four thousand six hundred million years of the life of the planet?
The island waited, all had worked together to create a masterpiece – a paradise on Earth – by a series of unplanned accidents. But who was it for? Did it have to be for anyone? Did everything have to have a use? Did everything have to have a purpose? Couldn’t it just be?
One day a ship arrived on the horizon and anchored outside the reef on the leeward side of the island, where the most beautiful sandy beaches lay. A boat was lowered from the ship with fifty people in it, dressed in Hawaiian shirts, shorts and sandals. It chugged towards the island, found a gap in the reef and entered the lagoon. There were gasps of astonishment from the humans at the clear, pure water, the fish swimming lazily around in their shoals of thousands and the miles of beautiful sandy beaches curving gently around the island, washed and gently graded by the endless ripples breaking on the golden sand. The boat ground its keel on the sand and stopped. A few egg laying turtles looked up dreamily and then continued about their business knowing that no one would ever hurt them because no one ever had.
The humans jumped out of the boat and unloaded their supplies, chopped down a few trees to put up gazebos for shade, lit a fire with driftwood, dug latrine pits back towards the forest. They used nets to catch some fish and cook them on the fire. They also stole fresh laid eggs from the turtles to cook even though they were told to leave them as they were too salty to eat.
After a long day of eating, drinking, shouting and arguing, the boat came back to collect the humans. It took them back to the ship which up anchored and left. The island gave a sigh of relief and calculated the damage. Many turtles would never be born, their eggs had been cooked then discarded as tasting terrible, the beach was a mess of savaged trees, discarded branches, beer cans, food wrappings, fish bones and carcasses, disgusting things and other general debris. Fish from the lagoon had been hunted, some to death and the rest traumatised by the alien species that had arrived so precipitously to kill and despoil.
It would take about twenty years to restore the island to its normal pristine condition and for the animals to forget the traumas of the day the humans came. The island community hoped they would never come again, but now the island had been found…
Paradise lost.
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