This is the revised version of the first chapter of Desert Island Dicks, revised due to rather harsh but correct criticism of the original. As always, let me know what you think, but please, if you're going to be critical, try and be constructive with it so I can give you, the readers, what you really want.
I understand this is a strange situation to base a story in, but I hope it works and I will accept any good suggestions as to how I can make it work better.
If you still don't like this, try some of my much less controversial works.
Enjoy.
*
"How the hell do you get into these things?" asked Kieran Thorpe; an eighteen-year old son of two young parents Paul and Karen who sat between him and the aisle of this Boeing 747 Cathay Pacific Flight 872 that had left London Heathrow and was now about three hours from Sydney in Australia.
"What's wrong darling?" asked Karen.
Kieran held up a packet of peanuts. "I just want some nuts; you'd think I wanted to get a private meeting with Jesus Christ himself."
Paul sighed, reached over his wife and grabbed the packet before opening them, taking a nut and passing them back. "Next time, ask for a chocolate bar or something."
The rustle of that packet was soon covered by an immense explosion; soundwaves and energy waves rocking the aircraft. Some people screamed, some were just left unable to breathe. Kieran looked left out of his window and saw an engine falling towards the sea below them...
For him, everything went blank. When everything gained colour, touch, sense and perspective again, he was no longer in the airplane. He heard screaming, felt sand in cuts on the palms of his hands, and he opened his eyes.
The scene was sheer horror; his blue eyes were drawn to one third of the aircraft that had just reached the sand he was now lying bloodied on just feet from the water and just far enough from the aircraft to not quite feel the flames of a burning piece of fuselage. He saw bodies all around him, and immediately thought of his parents. But they were fine; sitting together by the wreckage staring hopelessly at it and the seventeen people lying dead in the craft, on the sand and some in the water.
Paul looked right and saw Kieran there. Nudging his wife, they both sprinted to their son where they embraced and cried.
"What happened?" Kieran asked.
"Plane blew apart," Paul replied. "Don't know where the rest of it is, but four rows came down with us. They're all dead."
"Should we fetch them from the water?" he immediately asked, going to stand up. He yelped in pain and lay back down. He finally felt his legs, but they were both bloodied and bruised.
"Looks like a bad one," Paul said. "Good thing your old man's a doctor, isn't it?" he smiled; this whole thing not seeming to be getting to him too much. Mind you, he'd been through a lot, and Kieran was still a teenager, so maybe it was best his dad handle this better.
"We've got no medical supplies," Karen replied; cuts on her face and rips in her blouse revealing flesh, blood and a little naked skin. "They would have been kept at the rear of the aircraft, we were in the middle."
"Then here's what we need to do," said Paul, standing even though his leg hurt. He held his arm, which had been dislocated at the shoulder. Karen had since relocated it but it was still very painful. "Get the bodies from the water, strip the aircraft of what's on it, make shelter... and find the rest of this aircraft."
Two weeks later:
"He's not handling this, is he?" asked Karen, sitting with Paul on the beach in front of their makeshift tent shelter; an actual two-man tent that had been torn slightly by a piece of broken fuselage but was still better than the absolute open elements.
They looked about a two hundred metres left to where Kieran, still on a rudimentary crutch made from a tree stump and some twine, tended to the graves of the seventeen dead men, women and children from the crash a whole 15 days ago. "Poor kid, this whole thing's enough to make you crack. A whole fortnight, and no rescue team."
At that moment, Kieran stood, crossed himself and began making a slow passage back to his parents. "He was always the most sensitive kid in school," Karen observed. "He needs cheering up."
"Hey, we've tried the sex thing already, it was too soon. And to be honest, I've been a little caught up in the whole 'we could die any day due to lack of food and medical supplies' thing to be that horny either."
Karen sighed. "I told you, it would cheer us up. Take our minds of things."
"And I told you, we found our suitcase and your dildo, why don't you just head into the forest and fuck yourself?"
"Don't be like that!" Karen chastised. "I'm trying my best..."
"So the fuck am I, Karen!" Paul almost shouted back. Nobody saw Kieran see, and stop in his tracks. "Me and Kieran, we've been putting up the shelter, gathering food, at least fucking trying to catch a little fish or three, and you've just been sitting there flashing your knickers thinking about sex. Hello! We're stranded on a desert fucking island with no sign or hope of getting off, Karen! Get your fucking priorities straight!" he now shouted at the top of his voice. He looked down immediately, aware that that was the first time he'd lost his cool, and it actually felt pretty good. So good that he didn't call after Karen when she stood and walked off; instead bowing his head into his knees and trying not to cry.
"Dad?" he heard a few seconds later.
He looked up and saw Kieran in front of him. "Hey son. I suppose you heard that?"
"Yeah," he replied, and painstakingly lowered himself to sit next to his father. "You were right, though."
"Doesn't make me shouting at your mother right, though," he replied, bowing his head a little once more. "It's still morning; did you want to have another go at catching some food?"
