Semi-autobiographical with tons of grammatical errors and way too long and confessional but here it goes. I'll probably regret posting this.
The desert island movie is centered on the premise of survival. Its premise is supported by our fear of isolation as a species and our desire to be independent. To be self sufficient is the ultimate test of strength, especially in extreme circumstances. But what happens when one wants to be isolated? What is one to do if they desire to be cast off from the rest of the world?
That's what my life had been like for most of my life. When I was younger, it was my job to serve people, in harsh lit hotel rooms with thin walls that seemed like they could crack if you had the nerve to scream hard enough. But now I was almost a man, and as a man you are supposed to look back on these experiences with pride rather than shame. So I stuck to the comforts of pop culture. I crafted a new version of myself after the art I loved, a version of me that felt more honest than the younger self I had been forced to sell. I fancied myself a philosopher. In reality, I was a spoiled brat who wouldn't even touch a door knob for fear of illness and spent all day eating junk food and watching television.
It all changed when I saw him, the writer. He had a face that looked like it could've been around for a thousand years. He seemed to choose all his words carefully but he also had a confident air about him. He knew he was too good for a daytime TV program. I loved his quaint looking glasses and how he parted his hair to the left just like I did. I hated his tacky neon yellow dress shirt though. Why did he think that would look good?
He was not a famous writer, but he did have a Wikipedia article, where I learned that he was well-educated (of course), that he had won lots of awards (of course), and that he was a "tennis enthusiast." I knew nothing of tennis besides Wii Sports matches I had played as a kid. He came from a world of prestige. It was like fetishizing a foreigner.
His arrogance caught up with him. Allegations of things that I either thought weren't true or was too scared to believe were true. Everyone forgot about him after that. But to me, it was impossible to forget about those perfect brown eyes, an oasis of calm in a world that thrives on havoc. I took a job at a local gas station and spent hours daydreaming about holding his weary body in my arms.
Then one day, I decided to write him a letter. I don't know why. I didn't think he would respond. It was poorly written and I crammed all the words together because I rambled so much. I had to tell him how much I loved his work. Because as much as I loved him, I loved his words too. I used to think humanity was a dull and contemptible species. But he made people pop out of the pages like the most colorful Fourth of July fireworks. You could just tell that he loved people. The way he noticed how people would raise an eyebrow at the mention of a certain name, or how they folded their clothes as they absentmindedly listened to the news. I was certain he was an angel. And angels don't associate with mere mortals.
But on New Year's Eve there it was in my PO box. A letter from him. I loved the way he crossed the Ts in my name, like it was a work of art he was carefully trying to recreate.
"Thank you for the letter—about the nicest I've ever received", he began, before opining about his exile from the literary community and offering me his email address so we could continue corresponding.
I was unemployed, bound to my bed, and losing my sanity slowly but surely. My father I rejoined the wider world again, but he didn't understand that this was no longer possible. The island of the writer and his words were all I would ever need. And now he crafted his words just for me.
At first it was about his books. I wanted to know what gave him such faith in humanity. He seemed to skirt the question. He quoted Hemingway and gave me book recommendations. I read them like scripture and gave him reviews. He said that I helped him learn how to laugh again. He was alone now, sans his mother, and I found it comforting that a man three times my age was living with his parents too. He wanted to know more about me. And reader, I told him everything. About my illnesses, physical and mental. About the people who had hurt me and the guilt I felt. About my family and their anger and how I wanted nothing more than just to die. And about my age. He had a daughter my age he was estranged from.
"I'm not gay", he would frequently begin sentences with, "but if you were older and I was, then I'd be in love with you."
My age was not a problem, he said. But no one else could know. "You've seen how the media treats me", he would whine. "My career is over." He would write seething indictments against invisible backstabbers and ominous forces who were after him. "People always seem to stab me in the back", he wrote on Valentine's Day.
Was he desperate? That's the only logical reason I can think of him wanting me, a man he had never seen, after he spent decades chasing skirts. He praised me for qualities I'm certain I don't possess. Things like "creative intelligence" and "witty intuition." He told me he thought frequently about how soft my skin was even though I told him I was riddled with acne. He wrote to me about his fantasies of our nice, quiet life together, reading books side by side together on the couch with wine glasses in hand. That is, until I reminded him I wasn't even old enough to drink.
"Do you love me?", he asked two months after he first wrote me back. And I told him, yes, I did. I wanted all the things he wanted and more. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I would help take care of him when he was feeble, I promised. I'll go to college and get a good job to help support us. I love you too.
And then three days later I got a notification that read "I hope you understand if I take a few steps back at this point." He was scared, he said. He was worried that he wasn't good enough for him, a washed up alcoholic writer living with his mother whining about "cancel culture." He would never publish again and he had no other skills. And I had a future, he said. Someone younger and better than he.
I was cast off the island. I was as I was before I saw him, drifting out at sea. I suppose things are calmer now that my heart isn't beating rapidly all the time. But I miss him and I like to believe he misses me too. So now I write for him. I know that you're supposed to write for yourself but I've found that's impossible for me to do. I'm too weak to build an island for myself. But I like to think that my writing is like sending little messages in bottles out into the wild tides of the ocean. And I like to believe that one day a bottle will drift onto land and that he was discover my words and feel whole again, just as he did for me.
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