Once Upon a Marshmallow

"Gar! Make 'im walk the plank."
"Throw him to the fishes."
"Hang him from the highest yardarm."

Each new suggestion was greeted with joyous sounds by the rowdy pirates. Then, a new voice piped in.

"Maroon him on the White Island!" Few knew what or where this was. It's locatation was kept as a profound secret by the wayfaring captains of the sea. A sort of trump card against mutineers and grumblers.

This was the plan adopted. Less than 3 hours later, I, Jonathan Garbaldo, was set upon the thin green edge of the Island. Less than 2 minutes later, the pirates, my former companions and friends, were speeding away; not daring to stay longer in the mysterious place from which no man had yet returned.

The green spit upon which I stood, was the only green thing in sight. For the rest, a smooth looking white cliff arose into the clouds. I walked the 5 steps necessary to reach the cliff. I had to find a way up. In another hour, the tide would be coming in. To my surprise, I found it to be very porous. I touched it and stepped back in astonishment. I had never seen the like. A sticky, powdery rock! I sniffed the stuff that had come away in my hands, and then I tasted it. In untold horror, I knew in that moment that this strange place was nothing other than a giant marshmellow. It would have been drifting heedlessly had it not been for the narrow piece of earth at the bottom.

"At least," thought I, "I won't want for food!"

Upon further examination, I discovered steps climbing up the white cliff. I was not surprised to see that many of them had been carved by teeth. But, I had no time for thought or exploration. The tide was lapping at my feet. I went carefully, but after the first few steps, I knew I had to go quickly. If I paused for a moment, my feet would stick. When I sped up, I only felt as if I was walking upon a springy white carpet. A delightful sensation really.

It took me nearly two hours to reach the top. I was then in for another surprise. Stretched out for miles was a town made completely of marshmellow. Dusty white figures darted quickly about snatching bites of the mountain as they went.

Upon approaching, I discovered old friends. These people, I realized, were all those who had been marooned from decades past. A short conversation took place as we jogged back and forth. I discovered all I needed to know. The outcasts could not stop moving or they would stick and sink. They ate as they ran in distinct patterns. Eventually, they would be able to add more buildings to the town. They made the buildings large so that they would have room to keep moving during a storm. Many had lived there for 20 or more years. In all that time, they had never seen a friendly ship. The colony was divided into two groups. The first group ran in circles along the edge of the marshmellow. Their job was to look for ships. The second group, as has been mentioned, carved the buildings with their teeth. When one group had had enough to eat, the groups switched.

I quickly adapted to the new way of life, but despite the fact that I did what everyone else was doing, I was far from happy.  I was often to be found swimming in the ocean, the one time that I didn't have to stop constantly running, the one time when I could relax and get away from that sticky landmass.  The idea of freedom was never far from my thoughts as I went through the mundane sameness of what was my new life.

It was like this for months, but I knew it could not last forever because the island was rapidly shrinking as new members were added to the colony of outcasts. Yet, what could I do?  The marshmallow could not be moved, the colony had nothing that could be used to escape the sticky mess that we were all in.

But this all changed when a small chest washed ashore, and stuck fast to the goo that was our beach.  After painstakingly opening the chest at risk of getting forever stuck in the glistening white landscape we discovered naught but a single match that had somehow escaped the water.

It was with this that we resolved to make our escape from the desolate island.  We determined to burn our way to freedom.  I remember it like yesterday, the decision to risk burning our island in the hope that we could turn our fluffy habitation into an over-sized hot air balloon.  But could we generate enough heat to take us to land?  That question we left for the next morning, the day of our great attempt.

To prepare us for our venture, I suggested to the colony that we find for ourselves seaweed, with which we might be able to avoid getting stuck for a little while in the sponge-like thing we called home.  Once having obtained a sufficient supply of seaweed, we began placing it on such parts of the island that we felt would be safe for habitation during our flight home.

On the following morning, we laid the chest in a deep hole that had been excavated in the side of the Mt. that occupied the center of the island. Before lighting the match, we also painstakingly detached with our hands the marshmallow from the green beach. And then the match, the one hope of our escape, was lit and applied to the chest.  Thankfully, the chest caught, and we had only to wait as the chest burned.  Would it be enough to inflate the island?  Would the island turn into a giant roasted marshmallow and waft across the currents  towards freedom?

As unlikely as it seems --and what about this story isn't unlikely?-- the fool's hope, the last desperate attempt to save ourselves from insanity, stickiness, and the thought of eating more marshmallow, succeeded. With great trepidation, hardly daring to believe our eyes, the great island lifted a few feet, faltered, and then, half floating on the ocean, half flying in the air, we were on our way to freedom.

The thought of those last few hours sicken me still. We had no way to guide our ship. Would the wood of the chest last long enough to bring us to land; land that we had no idea where it was, or if it was? As the flames licked up the last plank, the clouds lifted. They lifted higher than they had ever lifted before. And we saw it then. Saw what we had never seen before. What had been our 'ocean' was nothing other than a large lake. If we had, in our daily swim, swum but a little farther, the truth would have been known. Freedom could have been so much sooner.

I leapt ashore first, but I left the scene of our horrible folly last. I lingered, and one thought was pressed indelibally on my mind. Fears are only as big as we believe them to be. When we take action to overcome the prison of our fear, we find it to have been as insignificant as a fly. All our lives, we had been told that the White Island was a place of no return, but if we had only looked beyond the lies, we would have seen the truth.