Dragonfly – Short Story

Losing it all on reality TV

DAY 36

In the wild your hand is a watch. Hold it parallel to the horizon, add fifteen minutes a finger until you touch the sun, and voila, we’re looking at death in three fingers.

That is, if you believe Marcus…

“Really?” Marcus’s breath condensates into a cloud. He’s pointing a fire bow at the Sony. “Told you it doesn’t matter anymore.”

I say it matters even more now. How if he’s right, every second is worth a new car that doesn’t bleed oil. Every minute a new house that doesn’t reek of cat piss. Studios will kill for the footage. It’ll win an Oscar like Grizzly Man.

Marcus places a stick in a nest of aspen shavings even though I told him cedar burns better. “Didn’t he die?”

I shrug, snatch the Sony from the tripod, and turn it on Marcus. The producer with the fugly star tattoo on his forearm said always be rolling. He called it “coverage.”

Marcus threads the bow over the stick and places a rock on top. He makes a sawing motion. Later, when an editor strings this footage together, a “survival fact” will appear on screen. Survival Fact: If you can dent a piece of wood with your thumbnail it’s soft enough for a friction fire.

“What would you have done with the prize money?” He asks as he saws.

I tell him about our plans, Dragonfly. About starting a new life where your Daddy’s fists and lies can’t find us. I tell him I have no choice but to win.

He chuckles. “Girl’s never lasted all hundred days. Best was Connie Cooper three seasons back. Tapped out on Day 62.” The next part he embellishes like he’s crying. “Missed her kids so much.” But only for fake. Marcus, the self-titled “Mountain Man of Montauk” would rather die before tears could soften his masculinity.

I tell him I’m going to try again.

He says, “waste of time,” then leans down and blows on an ember that isn’t there. He says, “bet.”

I leave the camera and duck under our neon blue tarp. Survival Fact: A tarp angled at 45 degrees can capture two gallons of rain water during a light shower.

Atop the camera gear’s hardshell case sits my pack. I reach inside and feel a fuzzy, soft, slick something that brings to mind your hair, the red ribbons tied in your hair, the ones you never let me take out, brings to mind you licking a sticker and pressing a dragonfly, a sticker, a padded sticker, pressing it on an envelope you pressed into my hands. I want to open it, but it’s too soon. I’ll need you later. Not now. Now I need to prove my suspicions. So I unearth the sat phone and pull it free.

Only for emergencies, the producer with the shitty star tattoo had told us. Production basecamp sits on the far north end of the island, over a mountain none of us are equipped to scale. 

You would have loved this, they delivered Mommy and the other contestants to our sites on those floaty boats. The ones Navy SEALS use. The ones that look like inflated condoms. The ride only took one finger. Safety within reach.

Until it wasn’t.

The night he stumbled into my camp all sweat-drowned and crazy-eyed Marcus tried my phone five times with not so much as a “hello” from basecamp. He’d left his gear back at his own camp after being attacked by a quote, “bigass monster.”

The next morning we tried again. Still no dice. We discussed all the possibilities, but it didn’t matter. Each hypothetical ended the same way. Help wasn’t coming. But it wasn’t until this morning that I’d considered another possibility.

Marcus is lying.

Reality shows are anything but. For all I know, Marcus running scared into my camp was written by a room of dudes in Hollywood. “And then we scare the shit out of the girl.” How original. It’s why I put Marcus on fire duty. Test his skills. If he’s just a paid extra, we’ll die of starvation before he sparks a fire.

Since not answering makes good TV, my fingers instead dial the number we warned against dialing. It rings, that tin can warble of stretched lines, that only phone number any of us still remember. Muscle memory of home. I just wanted to tell you again I haven’t left for good. Just left for now. It rings. Rings. Rings. My chest clenches. It’s bedtime. You should be home with Nan. The line clicks, but it’s just the echo of us. I die a little.

“Anything?” Marcus asks, still fumbling with the bow.

I wave him off and leave a message for you, Dragonfly. A good night. A sleep tight instead of the mantra banging in my head. Please be safe. Please be safe. Before I can hang up, smoke starts to billow from Marcus’s impossibly successful friction fire.

He says in a high-pitched voice that’s supposed to be my voice, “cedar’s better than aspen.” He says in a voice that’s his voice. “My ass.”

Survival Tip: To stoke the male ego, let him be right on occasion.

With the phone still to my ear, I say loud enough for Marcus to hear, “Basecamp? Yes I’m here. Yes, Marcus is here too.” I pause and Marcus’s eyebrow arches into a question mark. “Pretty shaken up, sure. Says he got chased off site by a monster. Mmhmm. Yes, I’ll have a signal ready.”

I put the phone back in the bag and march towards the tree line. Marcus follows. “They’re alive?”

I tell him to feed the fire. Tell him I’ll be back with help. After the hair of a finger, Marcus buys it. 

As I’m walking I’m telling my mic, which is telling you – my red-ribboned dragonfly – about the migration patterns of steelhead salmon. You’ve been watching, so you know I’ve only caught three. Crunched the bones of the last one into a broth days earlier. If my net has caught another, by the time I get back to camp, I’ll have consumed two days of calories to Marcus’s zero. Try gloating on an empty stomach.

Survival Fact: The average woman consumes 15lbs of male bullshit a day.

I pick my way across a broken slate shore and see it. The way the net sags in the middle means I caught something. Mr. Star-Tattoo-Producer-Man is gonna love this coverage. Tucking my pants into my waders I notice a lumpy pile of beige stuck in the net. My stomach shrinks. 

Looks like my big catch is just another algae bloom.

Now, standing by the net, ice water spilling into my boots, I’m thinking about Rice Krispies. They’re crackling and popping across the thing that’s not algae, but a bloated carcass. Some water-logged animal. I know what they really are, but my stomach doesn’t care. I pinch a Rice Krispie between my fingers and dangle it near my lips. Protein is protein. Then the smell hits. The sticky stench of raw venison gone sour. The copper tang of elk liver left in the sun. My stomach lurches and I heave dry air. Once. Twice. Bile strings from my lip and I turn to leave before I can taste the rest of my insides. But before I do, I notice a black mark on the pale skin.

Probably just a brand. Probably a just cow. Probably just a farmer’s cow. 

I should be thinking a lot of things. Helpful things. Survival things. But when I see the shitty star tattoo on the rotten flesh, I’m only thinking one thing:

Marcus isn’t lying.

DAY 38

It’s the next morning and sweat rolls down Marcus’s face as he dials numbers at random. “No I don’t need a new mattress.” He can’t remember his wife’s number. He dials another. “No, I don’t want to speak to a manager.” There’s no 911 for sat phones. He dials another. “It’s gonna get us too!”

Marcus swears it came last night, giant footsteps muddled by the rain. It mauled the last of our food stash. Marcus, he grabbed the Sony to capture evidence but caught only a blurry shape.

Go figure.

By Day 100, show’s end, maybe someone will come. Or maybe when we beat that bitch Connie Cooper to Day 63. Without food, we’ll make it to neither. Marcus wants to stay put, but basecamp’s our only option. If there’s still a basecamp…

Marcus, he yells into the phone “No, I don’t want to save money by switching carriers!”

DAY 39

They come every night now. Yes, I said they. You can hear them talking to each other. Pops and pings calling from the trees. 

Marcus spent the day carving spears. But the thing about spears? You have to get close enough to use them. Judging by the size of footprints circling camp, we’d be dead before we got close.

Marcus points a spear at the Sony. “Tell ‘em you believe me now.”

I look at the camera but really I’m looking at you, Dragonfly. Just you. I am there with you, wherever you are, with your red ribbons. With your grin. I fall asleep each night holding your unopened letter. I’m saving it for the end when I’ll need you most.

 But for now I–

DAY 51

Sony died the day before we left camp.

Maybe I shouldn’t use the word “die.”

Guess who decided to join me on my trek after all? Say Hi Marcus. I hold the last GoPro over my shoulder, but Marcus won’t say boo. The only thing he says these days is his wife’s name when he’s thrusting inside me at night. It’s end stage Parkinson’s sex. It’s terminal blood cancer sex. The clutching and grabbing and biting of the desperate. It doesn’t mean anything. Until it does. And Marcus starts saying “sorry” and “Theresa” on alternating thrusts. But I’m alive and I don’t care even when his tears come before I do.

So much for the Mountain Man of Montauk.

At least he keeps the fire going. It’s the only thing that keeps them away at night. For now…

DAY 63

Eat your heart out Connie Cooper.

DAY 74

Rain for days. All kindling is soaked. Yet I returned from foraging to find my backpack open and Marcus with a fire. Warming my hands over the miracle I find you. Burning. Curling. Flames licking you like you licked that sticker. That sticker dripping into flames. Your words crackling and popping. Syllables blackening to ash. My baby roasting alive one letter at a time.

Marcus’s eyes say he’s sorry.

His lips do not.

DAY 75

Morning at the top of the mountain ridge and Marcus is gone. Without a trace gone. You still don’t answer, so I leave another message. I say, “Sometimes it’s okay to hurt the people that hurt you.” I say “Sometimes Mommys can love too much.”

With Marcus gone, it’s just me and you now, Dragonfly. Just me and you.

DAY 100

Ring.

I’m the winner. We’re rich.

Ring.

This is the part of the show when my family surprises me on the island to tell me I won. This is when you surprise me, Dragonfly.

Ring.

Red ribbons bouncing in your hair as you cocoon your arms around me.

Ring.

I find basecamp’s phone inside a shredded tent caked with mud and blood. The rings stop when I end the call.

Survival Fact: If hope is lost, dig a shallow pit, lay down. Die.

No food for days, my body is already just a walking corpse. A hollow puppet jostled over frozen peaks and swollen rivers by strings of determination. But here we are, at the end, and the only thing here is nothing.

Just a finger fits between the fiery goddess and fate. No time for a fire. But just enough for you, Dragonfly. A final goodbye. My fingers start to dial but are interrupted by a chorus of pops and pings from the forest. This is it.

My life’s show finale.

A bush rustles near the tree line. I hoist Marcus’s last spear and let out a guttural growl. A voice yells “cut“ but the spear is already hurtling through the air.

A monster steps out from the bush, all smiles and outstretched hands. A monster, with red ribbons in her hair.

The spear, it follows its course. Her mouth forms the letter “M.”

M for Mommy.

M for Monster.