The Island Of Exiles

From Atlantis to Gilligan’s Island, history offers us many stories of undiscovered islands, often with mystical or unearthly powers. In the following pages, I’ve got a story for you about an island of fear, mystery, courage, illusion and truth.

Wiggling my toes in the sand atop the dune, I look across the bay on this warm and dreamy evening. Across the shimmering water, I see city lights scattered across the headland of the peninsula. I come here seeking peace, longing for wholeness and I find myself suspended in a strange space between the loss of a love that I prayed would make me whole and the relief of letting go, not trying anymore, free floating and unattached, no risk of saying the wrong thing now. I stand here for I don’t know how long before I roll my sweatshirt into a ball and place it on the sand as a pillow. I lay down in the warm sand, between the dune plants, put my chin on my hands and peer through the sea grass and coastal shrubs to the hills on a distant shore. When I did this as a boy, I’d sometimes squint my eyes and see little creatures and faces through my blurry vision. It feels good to do it again, like I did when I was young, creating small worlds In dreamy reverie. In my fantasy or maybe a delusional state, the small plants and tiny insects become otherworldly forms, wriggling, scurrying, stopping and staring back at me with a hundred tiny eyes. My eyes, half closed and blurry with subtle visions, invite my imagination and, as I lay here in the sand, I drift off and invite the dream.

What comes next is real but not true. What I see is real. What I feel is real. It can’t be true but is invitingly real, in all its mystery and contradiction. Continued….

Island Of Exiles Scenes

These images are scenes from the narrative. They are clickable and will enlarge. Reproductions of these images, printed on archival paper with archival inks, are available. See the purchase page. .

Island Of Exiles Characters

The images below are characters that our narrator encounters on the journey on the Island Of Exiles. Each image can also be purchased through the page listed in the main menu.