Harold’s mind began to drift as he walked down the beach back to his office. To his left was the ocean with waves crashing in a pattern that was ingrained in his mind; it was as familiar as a heartbeat, and his steps soon fell in sync with it. To his right were beach-worn concrete corridors with a gang of radio towers reaching out from their rooftops. They stood like silent giants judging him as we walked under their shadows. He looked up at the bird’s nests bursting out from every crevice and sighed at a thought of how much more useful the equipment was for the birds instead of his own race. The towers were once a sign of promise, a connection to the outside world, but they have since become a behemoth reminder of the world that has probably long forgotten it’s tribe of heroes out in exile. The media frenzy was over, the politicians had nothing to gain by making it an issue, and the attention of the masses moved on to the next trend.

He thought about ancient Egypt and how he wanted to be an archeologist when he was a boy. He could picture the black and white newsreels showing the pyramids and thought about how curious and excited people must have been upon learning about such a mysterious time and place of world history. How long did it take to fizzle out? How long before people stopped pondering the mysteries laid before them and went back to their daily lives allowing their mental sands to bury the sphinx once again?

How long have they been on this island? How long did it take for the world back home to forget about him and his team? The excitement of the early days is long gone; the people on this island treat their task as if they go to work a shift in a factory every day. Have they buried the outside world with their mental sands just as the outside world had surely done to them?

The messages bounced between the island and the outside world were automated and sterile. They weren’t even listened to anymore. The technician had a flurry of lights on his desk and could tell when the towers were active. The same message every half hour every day for what seemed like a lifetime. From time to time just out of curiosity one might put on the headset, but it was an act of futility. Nothing was going to change until there was some sort of breakthrough with the data coming in from the waves. And as Harold firmly believed, there would not be a breakthrough until the something changed; either in people or the waves. The same people and institutions have been analyzing the same pattern for so long and using the same techniques that it seemed hopeless.

Harold let out a sigh and let his mind jump a few grooves to settle on Jane. He thought of her smile and the look she would give when his mind was reeling with hopelessness. The world needed something new to work with in order to break the cycle. He figured if he couldn’t get something new for the world maybe he would at least do something new for Jane. He didn’t want the excitement with her to fade out the same as the outside world had. Something spontaneous would help break up the dullness of their lives and they could be the one shining example of hope in an seemingly dismal world.

Harold pushed open the heavy steel door to the bunker of a building where his office was located. It was what he called the brain of the island. It was the transmission center to and from the outside world, but also monitored everything on the island. Inside it was a semi- dark room lit by the controls and screens of the transmission and analysis equipment. It was kept dark and cool by the resident technicians as an escape from the hot scorn of the sun outside. Most of the technicians were already done with their work and were getting on with the rest of their day, some didn’t bother showing up most days, and others have found their positions obsolete until something new happened or broke. They considered themselves to be on-call. It was like this every day unless something went wrong, but the team had their task so fine-tuned that nothing seemed to go wrong unless the occasional storm rolled in and wreaked havoc on their otherwise simple lives.

As for the technicians that did show up; Information was checked and re-checked, data was backlogged, and maintenance was performed as necessary. No one was very busy or bogged down with work on the on the island. There were no bosses or commands sent from the mainland. They had nothing to do except maintain and wait. Most of them went to work just to stay relevant or to have some sort of routine and structure in their lives. The work was easy enough, and the people were pleasant enough – It gave the day a bit of meaning. Bruce was the only one who had showed up and was still working. He had a headset put up to one ear and a look of concern on his face as Harold walked by.

“What do you expect to hear?”

“Just doing a function test on all the listening stations. We’ve been getting some static from tower five. I was hoping it was just a headset, but it’s coming through on all of them.”

“Probably just another mouse chewing through a wire, or a whole flock of seabirds taking up residence.”

“Well, I need something to occupy my mind. I’ll check it out later once the sun has taken on a more agreeable angle. Check on me before sundown, with my luck the harness will get tied up and I’ll spend the night with the birds.”

Harold let out a short laugh at the thought, “I’ll take a look if I’m around, but let someone else know too. I want to do something with Jane. I don’t want things to get insipid. I might take the motorbike and go to the other side for a night.”

“Great, I’ll be dead and hanging from a radio tower and you’ll be out on a honeymoon.”

“Well don’t get stuck!” Harold snapped. His frustrations and sense of hopelessness had been eating at him. Those feelings focused on Jane and took him to a breaking point. He felt a flash of adrenaline shock over him at the release of the words. “I’m sorry. This place has gotten the better of me today.”

Bruce shrugged it off, “The other side probably isn’t a bad idea. Maybe take a few days, take a week. This place isn’t going anywhere.”

“No, just one night. I don’t want to deviate too much from routine. If our minds drift too far they may never come back.”

“You and your mental focus. You and Jane are the only ones whose minds are anywhere near this island and it makes you both miserable. Look around, Harold! This place is nothing. These machines are nothing. You need to attach your mind to something. Give your imagination legs and let it run for a while. You’d be better off. Go with Jane, take a few days, and just let go for a while. Come to realize what this place is and try to make the best of it.”

“I know exactly what this place is! I have learned to live with it. I don’t need to live in fantasy; there is nothing wrong with the world.”

“The world. What do you know about the world?  All we know about anything off this island is what we can imagine. We haven’t had any contact since we got here other than the same auto-message set on repeat. The world as we knew it could be gone for all we know.”

“If the world had changed that much we would have gotten word by now.”

“Yes, of course. I’ve forgotten. We’re at the top of their list of priorities. That’s why it took the whole world vibrating for us to be given this island and facilities. That’s why they quit doing live transmissions and put everything on auto-pilot. That’s why they never even bothered to send supplies or food.”

“We were set up to be self-sustaining and you know it. We don’t need anything from the outside world except news of a solution.”

“It’s not going to come from the outside world. We’re the only ones working one it. We’re going to die here.”

Harold had nothing to say to this. He was already beaten down by his earlier thoughts. At the thought of dying on the island they both ended their conversation and went to their busy work. They checked and rechecked data, reviewed the maintenance logs to see if anything was coming up. They checked the history of tower five to see if there had been any issues with it before.

After a while it became redundant. There was nothing to do but wait for the sun to drop a little in the sky and withhold its intensity. The bunker served as a hang-out spot on days like this. There was simply nothing to be done that hadn’t already been done a thousand times before. Bruce busied himself by taking apart some piece of technology and figuring out how to make it work again. Harold holed himself up in his office, drinking coffee and reading one of the books from his collection for what must have been the tenth time. The variety in his collection had been limited on the island – the same books had been passed around through several rotations among those who read. They were left to entertain themselves most days, but they had also reached a level of contentment to simply sit in silence with each other. Harold and Bruce remained in silence for the rest of the afternoon. Nothing could be said that wasn’t already said before.

Bruce opened the door and looked outside; the sun had begun to take an angle where it wasn’t beating directly down on the island. He turned to Harold, “Alright, I’m gonna go up to tower five. I’ll see you when you get back. Consider taking more than one night.”

“No, I’ll see you tomorrow. Figure out whatever is going on with it and we can do the repairs together. I’ll let one of the guys know you’re up there on my way out.”

With that, Bruce exited and left Harold to his thoughts. Harold looked at his watch and poured the last of the coffee into his mug and sat in silent reflection. The lassitude of his life was weighing heavily on him. He thought of Jane and going to the other side; he hoped it would rejuvenate them. As time passed and his thoughts began to dwindle, he looked at his empty coffee mug, and with nothing left to drink he began to lock up his office. He walked past the glowing, whirring, machines and pulled on the heavy door. The air had begun to cool and the familiar taste of salt in it woke his senses. He locked the door behind him and made his way to the back of the building where the bike was. Bruce was out there getting his equipment together for scaling the tower.

“I thought you’d be up there by now.”

“Safety first, Harold. I don’t want a rescue team to have to come and cut me down. I filled the bike up; she’s ready to go. I’ll see you in a few days.”

Harold smiled, “Find out what it is, we will fix it tomorrow.”

“Have it your way.” Bruce lifted a heavy duffel bag filled with climbing equipment and threw it into the back of a worn-down pick up truck. “Bring back some fruit if the trees have any. We’ve grazed this side of the island down to the bark. I can’t stand another meal from the commissary”

“I’ll keep it in mind. You could always learn how to fish. There’s an entire ocean out there filled with them.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll learn to fish when you learn to take your mind off things.”

“You might starve,” Harold said as he mounted the bike and started the engine. The noise signaled an end to their conversation. Bruce threw the last of the equipment into the back of the truck and got in. They made eye contact and nodded at each other before they both put their vehicles into gear and parted ways.

Next installment: The Other Side