an appetite suppressant more than eating a filling meal. The Cope tin
he had now was given to him nine years ago, in his senior year of high
school. A friend of his panicked when he thought he had been spotted
with chaw in his lip by the principle during an assembly. He took the tin
out of his backpack and passed it down to the far end of the row where
George was sitting. Not wanting to be caught with tobacco himself,
George lifted up his pant leg, stuffed the tin in his sock and went to
the bathroom. Once there, he shook the tin’s contents into the toilet
and flushed it. The tin looked nice and he knew that tobacco tins are
watertight. So he brought it home and made a survival kit out of it. The
lid of the tin was metal and it was polished on the inside and could be
used as a signaling mirror. After a few outings on which he carried his
handy little kit, every member of his crew carried one just like it.
The Frito dust packed in the tin was for starting fires. There is
so much grease in Fritos that they burn for a very long time. Crushing
them into dust made them easy to ignite. George turned to the Fritos
on his eighth survival day, his only source of fat and salt on the island,
in the midst of a debilitating hunger pang. He tore the cellophane and
dumped the dust into his mouth. Immediately he began retching. A
sour, transparent fluid fell out of his mouth; the only thing in his empty,
nutrient devoid stomach: gastric acid. Some of it splashed up off a rock
into his eyes. It burned and blinded him. In a panicked stupor, George
started wandering blindly around. He was afraid.
*
He lay on the rock where his fishing accident occurred. He had
gotten there by senselessly crawling until one hand slipped off the steep
precipice. He backed up and lay down, exhausted, knowing that he was
in a safe place. George wondered to himself if it was truly possible that
he wasn’t going to last the final four days until Randy and Ken got back
to a town where they could send a search party for him.
His eyes teared incessantly. Out of habit, he wiped his eyes,
prematurely tearing the scab out of the corner of his eye. He took out his
Copenhagen can and squeezed it to distract him from the searing pain in
his eyes and redirect his frustration. The lid popped off and he hear d it
land somewhere to his left. He rolled onto his left side and curled into
the fetal position, thinking that if death took him now, it would save him
a lot of misery
He had heard it said that suicide is for cowards and he agreed.
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