Odelle and the Electric Isles

It was a stormy night.

We'd been sailing for days, through the North Atlantic Ocean- what was supposed to be a quick journey from France to England had turned into a nightmare. The boat's crew were exhausted, we were running low on supplies and the ship was barely holding together.

We'd lost another member of the circus that day- we'd found his body floating in the ocean, face down, his eyes staring blankly up at us.

All we wanted was to make it back to shore. We were just about ready to give up when suddenly, out of nowhere- the storm ended.

"What...?" I muttered to myself as I looked around in disbelief. For miles around us, there was nothing but clear blue sky and calm seas- almost as if we'd travelled backwards through time! I looked up at Pierre, who was standing beside me, and he appeared just as confused as I did. "Where is this?" I asked him. Pierre shrugged and looked around us, then he pointed ahead- "Look," he said, "there's land."

Sure enough, about half a mile away from us there was an island- I could see sandy beaches and palm trees swaying gently in the wind. The sight of it gave me hope- maybe our long ordeal was finally over? We stared at it for several minutes before Pierre suddenly grabbed my arm and pointed towards the north- off in the distance I could see another island. It looked even bigger than the first one!

"Look," he said again, his voice sounding excited for the first time in weeks, "there's another one!" He pointed straight ahead of us- sure enough, there was a third island right in front of us! Then he pointed behind us- a fourth! And then he started pointing around him faster and faster until he realised that there were more than twenty islands surrounding us now!

I grabbed him by his sleeve to stop him before he fell overboard with excitement- "Pierre," I said slowly, "maybe you should take a breath..." He nodded quickly and took a deep breath into his lungs before exhaling slowly. "Thank you," he said gratefully. "So... what do you think?" His eyes were sparkling with excitement as he asked me that question but I simply shrugged my shoulders helplessly.

"I don't know Pierre," I replied honestly. "This doesn't make sense." He nodded back at me with a grin on his face- "Neither does all this," he replied with a sweep of his hand as he indicated all the islands surrounding us. I grinned back at him sadly and sighed heavily.

The sun was starting to set now and even though we still had no idea where we were or how long it would take to get back home again, there wasn't much else we could do except go ashore just like everybody else onboard had done already while they waited impatiently for me and Pierre to finish talking so we could have something to eat tonight.