Gilligan's Island of Mystery!: The Skipper, Too

I come from people of the sea. Not like mermaids and mermen, although those exist and you don't want to mess them. Especially mermen. Where mermaids are beautiful and seductive, mermen are ugly and smell like dead fish in a scummy pond. And both are lousy tippers.

No, my grandpappy was a fisherman who captained a Downeaster that cruised Block Island Sound. Though sometimes he would chart a course for the Vineyard. Other times, Nantucket Bound. It was a hard life for him out on the sea. He knew there was fish out there. God only knows where, he would say. Pop was a bayman like his father before. But he reached a point where he couldn't make a living as a bayman anymore. There was no island left for islanders like me so I high-tailed to Hawaii and got a sweet gig piloting charters on a boat I bought for a song, the S.S. Minnow.

I wasn't cut out for the hard sea life like Pop and Grandpappy. They would come from being gone weeks at a time, have too many beers, and share stories about the ocean. Like mermaids and mermen. And man-eating sharks. Pirates. The Bermuda Triangle. Kraken. Sea monsters. They told tales of men going crazy after too much time on a boat. Oh, and the vomiting. So. Much. Vomiting.

Since I come from a fishing family and I'm the skipper, these castaways look to me as the de facto leader. They need a strong person to guide them through this ordeal. The thing is. I don't think I'm right in the head. All these ocean charters have me believing that all those stories of Pop and Grandpappy. I know I've seen the monsters. I tried to tell the others about it but they just scoffed.

"That's preposterous," snorted Mr. Howell.

"Absurd," said Mrs. Howell.

"I'm sure there is a scientific explanation," said the professor.

"I believe you," said Gilligan.

"Oh, Gilligan," I told him. "You still believe in the Tooth Fairy."

That's why when I saw the smoke monster, I had to think I was going crazy. But these people are counting on me. I was tracking a wild boar even though I haven't the slightest idea how to do that. Its grunting was coming from some brush in the jungle. As I crept toward it, a roar rang out from deep in the jungle. Trees and brush and greenery began to split. Something was forging a path toward me. It was a trail of black smoke, like something from a burning fuselage speeding through the jungle. I screamed and ran back to the camp. When the others asked what was wrong, I tried to play it off as running from headhunters I had stumbled upon. No need to get everyone worked up.

***

Imagine my surprise this morning when an actual headhunter comes wandering out of the jungle and onto the beach. He wears a knee-length skirt fashioned out of palm leaves. On his head is some kind of crown made of bones, a necklace made of smaller bones around his neck. Honestly, the outfit seems problematic to me. Like something a bad writer would dream up as a native islander's costume. The native is speaking in his native tongue but it sounds like jibberish to us. Two things we can decipher: 1) He is scared to death. 2) His name is Carl because he keeps patting his chest and grunting, "Carl!"

Carl points to the jungle and yells words we can't understand.

"What the hell is he saying?" Mary Ann says. "What's wrong?"

A roar bellows from the jungle. We all screams.

"What is that?" asked Gilligan. "Skipper, what's happening?"

Before I can answer, the smoke monster rips through foliage and wraps itself around a screaming Carl. The monster squeezes him tight and jerks backward into the jungle. Carl the Native is gone. The smoke monster is gone. All is quiet and said.

Except for Ginger who keeps yelling "ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod!"

"Normally I look for the plausible, logical explanation for something new," the professor says a little too calmly. "But what in the name of sweet Mary the Mother of Jesus lord at thy birth was THAT?"

"Okay, so," I say. "That was a smoke monster that I encountered a couple of days ago while hunting. It's a monster. A smoke monster. A monster made of smoke."

"And who was that guy it took?" he asks, which is not the follow-up question I was anticipating.

"Well," I say. "That was Carl. Obviously."

We all stand in terrified silence. The levity of our situation weighing heavy. Or is the brevity of our situation? I always get those two mixed up. Gravity! Gravity of our situation. The silent stillness extends for several seconds before The Professor finally speaks up.

"Guys? Where are we?"