Laments of a Soon-To-Be "Rescued" Sailor: (Gilligan Goes Emo)
Chapter 3: Sea Shell Saw Sawing
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The Professor was the first to try out their new sea shell saws. He vigorously rubbed the shell back and forth at the base of a palm tree's trunk while Skipper and Gilligan observed. All three of them were frowning as a tiny pile of saw dust fell at the base of the tree. This really was going to take hours.
"So just rub it like I'm doing," the Professor instructed, "and when your shell breaks or becomes too dull to file away any more of the tree, just get a new shell and keep going. We can probably get several planks out of each tree. The hardest part will come after the trees are already cut down, when we'll have to figure out how to fashion them into boards."
"How are we going to do that?" Gilligan asked, hearing his own voice sound very skeptical. He couldn't imagine any possible way that they would be able to cut the trees into planks. Even if they had a chain-saw, it would still be really difficult.
"Let's just worry about one thing at a time, Gilligan," the professor instructed.
Gilligan sighed. He didn't like that idea, "so we might cut down all these trees and then figure out that it's impossible to cut them into boards, so we'll have cut down all the trees for nothing? I'd rather give up now than wait until we've done a bunch of work and then give up..."
"We'll figure something out, Little Buddy," Skipper assured him.
Gilligan wasn't convinced, but no one ever listened to his logic, so he didn't argue.
"Alright," the Professor started again, "while you two start on the trees, I'm going to make some more nails." He placed Skipper's hat-full of shells next to one tree, and Gilligan's next to another - the one he had already started sawing, "If you get one down before I get back, just start on another, one of these very tall ones," he gestured to a cluster of super-tall trees, "Gilligan," he looked at the first mate, "when you've got it almost cut down, you're going to want to make sure you're not in a place where it will crush you when it falls; remember that. I don't want anyone getting hurt."
"I know," Gilligan told him. They all thought he was so stupid. He did, however, wonder how he was going to tell which side of the tree to be on when it started falling. Did they always fall the same direction? Maybe they always fell south, since south was sort of the same thing as down. But then, did everyone in South America and Australia have to hold onto the grass to prevent from falling off the world? He would ask the Professor these things, but he knew he'd look like a fool, so he kept quiet. He just hoped he'd happen to be on the correct side of the tree when it fell... if it ever did fall, that is.
The Professor walked away to go start making nails. Gilligan wished he could help him do that instead. It seemed like it would be a lot easier than sawing down trees.
"Well, come on, Gilligan," he heard Skipper's annoyed voice behind him, "get to work. You don't expect me to do this all myself, do you?"
Gilligan turned to look at Skipper. He wasn't doing anything either. He was probably waiting for Gilligan to start, because he wanted to be sure that he wasn't getting cheated over. If Skipper was working, Gilligan had better be working as well.
So Gilligan picked up the shell the Professor had been using and started rubbing it against the tree trunk as fast as he could.
He had made approximately zero progress when the shell cracked in half. Gilligan sighed, tossed the broken shell aside, and picked up another one. As before, he started vigorously rubbing it in the same place on the trunk. He glanced over his shoulder at the Skipper. He was rubbing his shell faster than Gilligan was, and he was already pretty sweaty.
Gilligan brought his attention back to his own tree. He rubbed the shell back... and forth... and back... and forth again. Then he did it some more. It was very repetitive, very tiring, and not at all rewarding. After half an hour, he had barely cut into a centimeter of the tree. He looked over at the captain to see how far he was coming along with his tree. Skipper had made more Progress than Gilligan had, of course. But even Skipper's tree was nowhere near cut down.
This work was nearly unbearable, so Gilligan decided he could day-dream while he cut down the tree. This way he would be removed from reality, but would still be cutting the tree down at the same time. As he rubbed the shell back and forth, he thought about where he would live if he could have any sort of life he wanted.
His day dream wasn't too far from his actual life (not currently, of course, but recently.) In his day dream, he lived on a beautiful tropical island, a lot like the one he actually lived on. There were chimpanzees who also lived there, in huts just like Gilligan's. They were his neighbors. One of the chimps was called Edgar. Edgar was his best friend on the island, and he made scrumptious banana candy out of bananas, sugar cane, and tree sap. In Gilligan's dream hut, he had a wonderful oversized hammock, and a stove, so he could cook things more easily. Gilligan was not naturally a good cook, but in his dream he was.
The dream-island had a beautiful waterfall in the middle of it, with very clear water in a sort of lake which the waterfall fell into and beautiful rainbow fish swimming around at the bottom. Edgar and Gilligan had a canoe and they would frequently go out into the lake and go fishing, but they always threw the fish back, because Edgar was a vegetarian, and Gilligan didn't want to kill the fish, because he'd feel bad.
Edgar and Gilligan wore grass skirts and painted their faces with colorful paint they made out of berries. They never tried to get 'rescued' from the island, because the island was their home, and they loved it there.
"Gilligan!" Skipper's angry voice rang out, bringing him back to reality.
Gilligan opened his eyes. He forehead was leaning against the tree trunk and his shell saw was laying on the ground at the base of the tree. It seemed he had accidentally actually fallen asleep, "Sorry Skipper... I guess I fell asleep..."
"How about we take a break after we get just one tree down each?" the Skipper suggested.
That would have sounded nice, but when Gilligan looked at the progress he had made, it seemed this break the Skipper spoke of may never actually come, "how about we take a break now?" Gilligan suggested.
"I know you're tired, Little Buddy," Skipper said, "but if we take breaks that frequently, we'll never get anything done."
"But I'll never get a break if I have to cut down this whole tree first," Gilligan complained. This was really starting to get on his nerves. Skipper had made much more progress than Gilligan had. At this rate, Skipper would get a break in a few hours, and Gilligan never would.
"Maybe if you work really hard I'll let you have a break sooner," Skipper suggested.
Gilligan sighed and turned back toward his tree. It wasn't fair that Skipper got to be the one in charge of breaks. Gilligan was a grown up. Maybe he hadn't been a grown up as long as Skipper had been, but he was still a grown up nontheless. He should be able to regulate his own breaks. Skipper was his boss on The Minnow, but he wasn't his boss on the island, was he? Maybe Skipper was automatically his boss everywhere... Gilligan wasn't sure how it worked. They had been shipwrecked while they were working, so would Skipper always be in charge? They never had finished the job they set out to do, which was the tour... Was the tour still going on? Were they still on the job?
He rubbed the shell as fast as he could. This shell cracked as well. He threw it off to the side, a little more forcefully than last time, and picked up a third shell. He rubbed this one back and forth as fast as he could too, and broke it within minutes. Maybe he was rubbing them too hard... He picked up another and rubbed it just as hard as the last one. If he ran out of shells, they'd have to take a break, or at least go hunt for more shells. And Gilligan would much rather look for shells than saw down trees with them.
As fast as he could manage, he rubbed the shell along the groove he had been sawing into the tree trunk. It wasn't long before this shell cracked as well, but it didn't crack as uneventfully as the previous ones had. This one cracked in a manner that caused it to snap back and cut into Gilligan's hand.
Gilligan gasped and dropped the shell's pieces onto the sand, except one piece, which was lodged in his palm. He could see and feel his hand trembling as he stared down at it. The shell piece didn't seem to have gone in too far, but it was still in far enough that Gilligan felt a little concerned about himself. This wouldn't make him bleed to death, would it? He wasn't bleeding too much, so he decided to just pull the broken bit of shell out of his hand. Gilligan winced as he pulled the shell out of his hand. As he did so, it was almost like he was removing a cork; the blood started to flow out much more freely.
He watched as his own blood dripped out of the cut on his palm, over a bit of his hand, drizzled onto the shell which was laying on the ground and then flowed off into the sand. The sand soaked it up just like a snow cone would soak up a delicious strawberry flavored syrup. He felt tears singing his eyes. The cut hurt, but it wasn't too bad. He looked at it. It didn't seem too deep. It was bleeding sort of a lot, but not so much that it seemed extremely serious.
He looked over his shoulder at Skipper. Apparently his gasping and wincing hadn't been too loud, because it hadn't caught Skipper's attention. The captain was still vigorously sawing away at his tree and paid no attention in the general direction of his little buddy.
Gilligan looked back down at his hand. He turned his hand so that his fingers were pointing downward and he watched as the blood flowed from the cut in his hand, down his fingers, and then dripped down onto the sand. Maybe he deserved to have his hand cut... After all, he was a slacker, even though he didn't mean to be. Skipper was working much harder than Gilligan was. The others were probably working hard at what they were doing too. Gilligan had probably been the least productive of them all. They were all so excited to get off this island, and Gilligan was only slowing them down, and not even on purpose! (even though he sort of wished he could purposely slow them down and not feel guilty about it...)
He could feel that his whole hand was sticky now. It was covered in his own blood. He wasn't sure if he had ever seen this much of his blood all at one time before. But of course, he had never been seriously injured in a way that would cause a lot of bleeding, so even though it was a lot of blood to him, it still probably wasn't anything he should have been too worried about... He hoped not anyway.
After a few moments, the bleeding seemed to be slowing down, which Gilligan was sort of glad to see, because he was beginning to wonder just how much blood his hand could possibly lose before it would be completely drained.
"Are you slacking off again?" Skipper growled from over by his tree, "Didn't I just tell you that you could have a break as long as you worked hard? Why would you even need a break if you've just been sitting there doing nothing, Gilligan?"
Gilligan turned around, "I'm sorry," he told his captain, "I - um... I accidentally broke a shell..."
"Well, get another one!" Skipper shouted, "that's why we collected so many. The Professor guessed that we'd probably break some. I've broken two already."
"I've broken four," Gilligan said, "but that last one broke wrong..."
"Broke wrong?" Skipper sounded confused and agitated. He tiredly threw down his sea shell saw and stood up to stretch his legs. At the same time, he further questioned what Gilligan was talking about, "what do you mean it broke wrong?"
"It snapped back and got my hand," Gilligan said, holding his hand up so Skipper could see.
"Little Buddy!" Skipper rushed over to him, "why didn't you say something?"
"I just did," Gilligan muttered, looking up at Skipper who had grabbed onto his injured hand and was looking it over.
"Let's get you back to camp!" Skipper exclaimed, keeping ahold of Gilligan's wrist to keep his hand flat and virtually still as they started back toward camp, "It doesn't look too bad, but we should have the Professor take a look at it. And it definitely needs to be bandaged." Skipper seemed like he thought this wasn't too big of a deal at first, but they had barely started back to camp when he added, "I knew cutting down trees with shells was a bad idea! I should have known this would happen!"
When they walked into camp, they were greeted by Ginger and Mary Ann, who were busy sewing up some sheets into sails. This was the work Gilligan should have been put in charge of. But then, he probably would have sewn his own hand onto the sail...
"Hello," Mary Ann greeted them, "time for a break?" she asked, "I could get you two something to drink."
"No thank you," Skipper responded, "Gilligan cut his hand on a broken shell... is the Professor here?"
Ginger and Mary Ann both gasped as their eyes instantly focused on Gilligan's hand.
"Oh, Gilligan! Are you alright?" Mary Ann looked so worried, "It doesn't hurt too bad, does it? Oh, you poor thing!"
"It's okay, Mary Ann, really," he insisted, "it barely hurts. It just stings a little."
Ginger finally took her eyes off Gilligan's injury and looked back up at the Skipper, "Well, the Professor isn't here, Skipper," she told him, "he's off collecting that stuff... whatever that material he found to make nails with... and we really don't know where on the island he is..."
"We should have asked him where he was going to be," Skipper sighed and looked down at Gilligan's hand, "Well, I guess I could just tie some cloth around it for now until the Professor can have a look at it later."
"Well, why wait?" Ginger suggested, "I played a nurse in a film once. I could take care of him."
Gilligan frowned, "but this isn't a film, Ginger," he pleaded, "the Professor would probably know more about it..."
"Oh, nonsense," Ginger insisted, "acting teaches a lot about reality. Once you've pretended to be a nurse on film, you are pretty much qualified to be one in real life too. Besides, the Professor isn't a nurse. He isn't a doctor. He's just a professor... and he hasn't even pretended to be a doctor or a nurse. You're much better off with me. Trust me."
Gilligan looked up at Skipper. He must have looked nervous.
"All it needs is a bandage Gilligan," Skipper reassured him, "you don't have to be a nurse to wrap a bandage around a cut."
"You'll be okay, Gilligan," Mary Ann added, smiling at him.
Reluctantly, Gilligan allowed Ginger to wash the blood, sand, and sawdust off his hand. She then cut off a small strip of the sheet they had been using to make the sail and tied it around his hand. She was very gentle, and Gilligan felt confident that he indeed was not going to die.
"Why don't you stay here with the girls, Gilligan?" Skipper asked, "I'm going to go find the Professor. We need to figure out a new way to cut down trees. I'm surprised he even allowed for us to do it that way in the first place..."
Gilligan nodded in agreement. He had been surprised the Professor had agreed to the sea shell saws as well. At least now the Skipper saw it the same way. The Professor would be more likely to listen to Skipper than to Gilligan. If Skipper said the sea shell saws were a bad idea, the Professor would probably agree. If Gilligan had said it, however, they would all just think he was being silly or lazy or something...
Gilligan sat down next to Mary Ann as he watched Skipper walk off into the woods.
"How were you cutting down trees, Gilligan?" Ginger asked.
"Hm?" Gilligan looked up, unsure of what exactly Ginger was asking, "I didn't cut down any trees. I tried to get one... but it's a lot harder than it looks. Really. It looks impossible, but when you actually try to do it, it's doubly impossible."
"I mean, Skipper said he was going to talk to the Professor about a different way to cut down trees. How were you doing it before?" she rephrased.
"Sea shells," Gilligan said.
Ginger narrowed her eyes, "What?"
"Sea shell saws," Gilligan told her, "we found sea shells with sharp points and rubbed them against the trees to cut them down. You might think it wouldn't work, but it sort of was. Not really for me... but Skipper was making a lot of progress. You might say he's really good at sea shell saw sawing." Gilligan laughed, "that's an even better tongue twister than before: Skipper set off to do some sea shell saw sawing." He giggled, "Oh, that's a good one. Try it!"
"Sea shell saws?" Ginger frowned, "that's a terrible idea."
"I know," Gilligan agreed, also frowning, "the worst part is... it was my idea... I didn't think they'd actually agree to it. I knew it was a bad idea from the start."
They were silent for a moment. Mary Ann broke the silence, "How did it go, Gilligan? 'Skipper did some sea shell sawing?'"
"Skipper set off to do some sea sell saw sawing..." Gilligan giggled, "I mean 'sea SHELL saw sawing...' he he he."
Mary Ann grinned, "Skipper set off to do some she sell saw... sea shell shaw... Oh, Gilligan. This is tricky."
"Sea shell saw sawing," Gilligan repeated.
"Sea. Shell. Saw. Sawing." Mary Ann repeated slowly. She giggled.
"Were are Mr. and Mrs. Howell?" Gilligan asked.
Mary Ann shrugged.
Ginger scoffed, "a lazy lot, those two," she pouted, "they both made excuse after excuse. We finally just told them to leave. They were complaining so much that they were making the whole process slower than it would have been if they weren't even helping at all. Oh, you should have seen them, Gilligan. Mr. Howell said his arthritis was too much to allow him to sew. Mrs. Howell said she'd need her glasses in order to see what she was sewing, but insisted that she couldn't find them... Then Mr. Howell wouldn't collect plants to weave into rope because he said it hurt his back to bend down to harvest them. They went on and on and on and on; excuse after excuse."
"Oh," Gilligan said simply.
"Gilligan," Mary Ann put her hand on top of Gilligan's uninjured one and looked at him sympathetically, "you look so tired. Maybe you should go inside and take a nap. I'm sure Skipper and the Professor won't mind. You've had a rough day."
"It's just a little cut," Gilligan assured her. He really was tired though, "I'll be fine," he said, and then couldn't help but yawn.
Mary Ann shook her head and stood up, pulling Gilligan up with her. She led him into the hut and pushed him gently toward his hammock, "you get some rest Gilligan. Skipper and the Professor will probably expect you to work tomorrow. Maybe not with cutting down trees anymore... but you'll have to help out somehow. They really work you too hard sometimes. You should sleep now while you've got the chance."
Gilligan easily agreed to this.
Mary Ann exited the hut, leaving Gilligan all alone. He looked down at his hand. It still stung a little, but at least he wasn't being forced to try to saw down a tree with a sea shell anymore. Because he had been stupid and careless and had hurt himself, he was allowed to take a break and to sleep. It got him out of working, and everyone was being nice to him. Cutting his hand had sort of been a good thing...
xxxxxx
"Skipper set off to do some sea shell saw sawing.
Silly Skipper sawed and sawed some sappy spruces.
Sea shell sawing a silly strange spruce is simply so stupid.
Skipper should see how silly a sea shell saw is,
So why use a sea shell to do a saw's work?
Sawing and sawing still in spring and summer.
Sea shell saw sawing is stupider than sand storm surfing."
He he he he he he he he he! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I wrote you a tongue twister!
Here's my review to myself:
"You'll grow up and re-read this and then you'll see all the little mistakes you made. You'll notice all sorts of places that are worded stupidly and all sorts of spelling and grammar errors. Gilligan's Island fans don't want to read stuff that's sad or emo-related, goofball! It's Gilligan's Island! Not some teenager show! Whatchoo thinking? Bits of humour show up here and there, but no one wants to sift through all this other bullshit to find it! Maybe when you're thirty years old you'll be a good writer. Until then, you should stick to Metalocalypse stories. No one expects them to be good, and the readers are all so happy to find one that isn't slash that they'll happily read and praise anything you write."