Author's note: Yeah, so this was written concerning the fact that the book ends without a lot of closure. It's an assignment for my AP English class, but I thought it was an interesting idea, so therefore I'm sharing. :D

Ralph faced the water, feeling the familiar spray of salt against his bare skin. A lazy summer-afternoon sun looked down upon the writhing blue sheet that stretched out below, and the rugged-looking boy averted his eyes. The sharp light that glinted off the waves made them burn. A cursory glance across the landscape told him that at the moment, he was alone.

Several men and women dressed in uniformed white stood staring calmly through the window. Momentarily unconcerned with the clipboards that rested against their sides and underneath folded arms at their chests, they watched intently.

The object of their collective gaze was a man of about 70. He was the only living thing behind the door, seated at a table that shone as white as the lab coats of his current guardians, surrounded by four walls of the same hue. The faint smell of sterilized soap hung in the air.

Barely moving, the old man sat in his chair and stared at the blank wall across from him. Some of the ones with the clipboards took a quick note of the frequency of his breathing, although one could hardly tell he was doing it at all. Others wondered what it was he was seeing, sure that it was anything other than what was truly there. They continued their silent vigil, watching as if from another realm as the man shifted slightly, smiled to himself, blinked his eyes, and stood. Someone's digital watch beeped, and with eerie synchronization the white-clothed group turned and toted their clipboards to another door. Today's evaluation had ended.

Ralph was in a reflective state of mind as he shuffled along the beach. His eyes adjusted to the softer quality of light and stopped burning from the harshness of the sea. Moving steadily toward the huts, he saw the jungle resting silent and shadowed on his right. The boy hummed part of a tune he remembered from someplace far from his body and father from his mind, making up his own melody when shortly he forgot how it went. I wonder how the others are getting along, he thought, suddenly aware of the length of time he'd been gone.

As Ralph neared the huts, he could see two figures busying themselves around the fire pit - one considerably smaller and more agile than the other. From this distance, their activities were not discernible; it was through the predictability of routine that Ralph knew: Piggy and Simon were building the supper fire.

The hallway was clear, the evaluators having moved to another sector of the ward. A meek and portly intern, who wore glasses and a nametag that labeled her "Pauline," crept toward the old man's door from her accustomed place behind the desk. Bearing a pastry on a crumpled paper plate, she turned the cold metal knob and tentatively entered.

Ralph happened upon the clearing just as Simon was finishing stacking the wood for the small cooking fire. It was easier now that they no longer needed a large signal fire going day and night. Rustling in the nearby foliage heralded Piggy's emergence. With his customarily shy way of moving, he dragged the cleaned carcass of a pig into the clearing.

Pauline timidly set the pastry on the table. The old man looked at her as if she were an old friend and smiled. She felt some of her apprehension slipping away and found herself smiling back.

"See, Piggy? I knew you could do it. It turns out we don't need Jack after all." Startled by such a random comment, Pauline wondered whether she should say anything. The intern held her awkward smile, relieved when the man busied himself at eating the pastry. It only remotely seemed odd the way he ate it - tearing at it with his teeth like it were a piece of meat...

Ralph, Simon and Piggy sat around the fire. Darkness crawled across the horizon, slowly gathering itself around them. Holding the meat, dripping wondrously over his fingers, Ralph paused before biting into it. "See, Piggy? I knew you could do it." He smiled approvingly and looked through the dancing flames at his wise friend, who was already proudly enjoying his supper. Piggy said nothing, but returned the smile eagerly.

Pauline considered it better not to ask why the man had called her Piggy, realizing that he had probably not meant it as an insult. Besides, patients' mentalities were generally fragile enough, without some unnecessary comment to confuse or enrage them. She fought to remember what had been written on the chart outside of the door. Pauline couldn't sit there for too long without having to say something to the man, and it might help to know something about him. But it wouldn't do to leave the room just to find out.

Thankfully, the information came to mind: the man's name was Ralph Lennon. A schizophrenic.

In the following months, Pauline frequented Ralph's room more and more often, until it became a daily routine. Something about the man, his almost childish disposition perhaps, despite his age - which was anything but young - intrigued Pauline. Or Piggy, as she was to him. It felt queer to think about it, but the intern often felt more like she belonged here, in this room with the oddly adolescent old man named Ralph, than she did with the hospital staff. She felt a connection with Ralph that was so strong it made other relationships seem abnormal in comparison. Although true that they were living in parallel realities, Pauline always loved retreating from her world, filled with insecurity, to the one which existed in Ralph's mind.

Setting the customary pastry on the over-sterilized white table, Pauline asked, "Where's Simon?" and entered Ralph's world.

"You know him, Piggy. He likes to go off by himself. To think, or something." Ralph sighed, leaning back against a log, contented with the warm feeling of the meat that filled his stomach.

Pauline nodded, playing Piggy, imagining the jungle and beach around her as she had begun piecing it together picturing it in her head long ago, finally able to appreciate the landscape as a whole. The snippets of conversation she'd had with Ralph had added up over time, enough to give her a surprisingly extensive awareness of her surroundings.

Ralph suddenly grew thoughtful. Frowning slightly, he wondered aloud: "What d'you suppose happened to Jack and the others?"

Pauline ran through a mental list of all of the boys she had come across in her conversational excursions with Ralph. Jack Merridew, with his ugly red hair and freckle-plastered face popped up among a sea of faces swimming through her thoughts. It was a game she played sometimes, when she was alone and could think of nothing else, to imagine what the boys would have grown up to do when they got back to England after the war. Just as often, she debated if they were even ever real people.

"I dunno," said Piggy, after a moment of hesitation, "Maybe he grew up and went into the army."

Ralph screwed up his face. "He's not old enough to be in the army. But I'll bet he still goes hunting."

Pauline leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and putting her chin in her palms. "Ralph?"

"Hmm?"

"Why didn't you get on the ship?"

Ralph shifted contemplatively. He stared at the ground and played with the shreds of cloth that clung to his legs which must have once resembled shorts. He felt as if he were about to say something that had been bottled up inside of him forever. "I wasn't like them," he confided, looking up into Piggy's spectacled eyes. "Neither were you. Or Simon. I couldn't leave either of you here, besides. And when the ship came, I couldn't find you." Ralph glanced down again, speaking now more to himself than Piggy. "I wish it didn't have to be that way..." Remembrance brought tears to his eyes, which he quickly wiped away. "I wish I had time to talk to Jack - there were some things I'd have liked to have said."

Pauline, who was Piggy, decided solemnly no to push the issue. Getting up quietly and leaving Ralph to his thoughts, she stepped off the island and into the hallway with the concrete resolution that she was going to find the real Jack Merridew.