Discontinuity
Prologue
The old man sat in the shade by the edge of the beach, idly swatting insects. The tropical sun was fiercely bright, and the white sands shimmered in the hot afternoon air. There was no sound but the breaking of the waves and the occasional call of a bird.
And then, faintly, the old man heard the buzzing of an airplane engine. The old man looked skywards, trying to spot the source of the noise. He shaded his right eye with his hand to block the glare from the sand; his left eye was hidden beneath a rough eye patch.
The drone of the propeller faded into silence. The old man swore, and spat on the sand.
Then he saw a white shape in the sky, growing slowly larger. He peered at it intently, and used a stout stick to haul himself erect. He stood on his right foot – his left leg ended six inches below the knee – and used the stick to balance himself.
He squinted, trying to focus his eye on the distant shape. Finally he saw it clearly, and grunted. It was a parachute, with a human shape suspended below it.
He watched its lazy descent, not taking his eyes off of it until the parachutist landed on the beach about fifty yards away. The nylon fabric of the parachute came down squarely atop the unknown parachutist, and the old man watched as the stranger struggled to get free of the entangling fabric.
The old man swore again, and began hobbling down the beach, using the stick as a crude crutch. When he reached the parachute, he leaned down, grabbed the fabric in his hands, and hauled it off of the struggling figure.
The parachutist looked up at the old man, and both of them froze, paralyzed by incomprehension. Then the old man snarled, "Sonofabitch! Jack?"
Jack Shepherd stared at the other man in shock. The old man looked to be about sixty years old. He had a balding head fringed with tangled gray hair, a matted beard reaching his chest, and was dressed entirely in rags. The left side of his face was marred by a trio of ugly parallel scars that reached from his forehead to his jawbone; one of the scars crossed his hidden left eye socket.
But in spite of the man's age and disfigurement, Jack knew him.
"Sawyer?" he asked, barely able to believe what he was seeing.
-- Discontinuity --