The Island

New Chapter

            The Island had been there longer than any of the men that had come there over the millennia. Not there had been much in the way of man on the island in the last few hundred years, other than those who had come by it by chance and stood offshore on the decks of their ships puzzling over their maps and charts not finding the island anywhere on any of them. Part of the problem was the island was little more that a craggy rock thrusting out of the Atlantic to far from any archipelago to be charted in the first place. It offered no shelter from the continuous rains and winds that constantly swept across its surface. There was no bay for shelter for any size boat. In truth, there was no reason for anyone to attempt getting to it shores and few bothered over the years that the same had stumbled by.

Those who did brave its rocky coasts and found purchase for their boats, discovered little vegetation larger than a scrub bush, nothing much edible and no fresh water. The Island had no name that any could discover and there was nothing remarkable to be seen from the shores. Those who had linger long enough for the weather to clear- which was very briefly, did find the only feature that would stand out about this desolate rock. About halfway up the Eastern slope of the Islands single Crag about 300 feet above the waterline was a Stone Circle. Again, the few who did find this connected it to anything and spent a few minutes wandering among the 13 stones.

If the Island had ever had a name it had been as lost to the knowledge of men as had its location. Those men who stood amongst the silent monoliths would scratch their heads, check their charts or maps and consult their compass only to find it spinning indeterminably. Again, they would peer around looking for some indication or some sign that there was something about this rock that would explain what was happening to the compass. Finally most of these curious men would depart the Island meaning to make a mark as soon as they found their heading but somehow all of them forgot about it until it was pointless to try. Out of all these men, only one spent the night on the island among the stones.

His name was Vasco De Gama, he was neither like the other explorers of his generation nor like those who had come before or would come after. He was rewarded for this decision when he looked up into the still night sky. He noted what he saw in a journal. The notes would have been something like this:

“O céu noturno é tão cheio de estrelas que eu não tenha visto em todos os meus anos de vela. Há as constelações de Copernicus e que os antigos registrados mais muito mais que eu não posso identificar. No pico da lua, um grande silêncio caiu sobre a ilha e por um momento eu tinha certeza de que o espaço entre estas pedras em pé cresceu como a sensação que se tem quando eles testemunham o fogo de Santelmo correndo ao longo dos mastros do navio como eles fizeram um noite perto do Cabo das Tormentas ao largo da costa da África. De repente, eu podia ver tudo ao meu redor como se o raio havia falshed ea luz dele congelou no lugar.

Meu primeiro companheiro olhou para cima e jurou. Eu fiz assim e não havia um buraco no céu e começou a chover luz. Era verdadeiramente o evento mais incrível que já tinha testemunhado em todos os meus anos sobre estas águas misteriosas. No entanto, antes que eu tivesse muito mais do que uma oportunidade de fazer comentários sobre esta providência, em seguida, a luz tinha ido embora e os céus voltaram ao seu estado anterior.

Meu primeiro e eu discutimos o que poderíamos dizer sobre isso para o resto da tripulação e que eu deveria escrever no log de navios, mas pelo tempo que eu tinha começado a bordo de uma grande tempestade caiu sobre nós e fomos abordado por muitos dias. Meus registros originais em que foram misteriosa ilha perdida no tumulto, e agora isso é tudo que eu lembro sobre aquela noite em que a Ilha, sem nome desconhecido.”

So it was in Portuguese and roughly translated it would read similar to this:

“The night sky is so full of stars that I have not seen in all my years of sailing. There are the constellations of Copernicus and what the Ancients recorded plus many more that I cannot identify. At the moon's peak, a great silence came upon the island and for a moment I was sure that space in between these standing stones grew like the feeling one gets when they witness St. Elmo's fire running along the masts of the ship like they did one night near the Cape of Storms off the coast of Africa. Suddenly I could see everything around me as if the lightning had falshed and the light from it froze in place.

My first mate looked up and swore. I did as well and there was a hole in the heavens and it began to rain light. It was truly the most amazing event I had ever witnessed in all my years upon these mysterious waters. Yet, before I had much more than a chance to remark on this providence then the light was gone and the heavens returned to their previous state.

My first and I discussed what we would say about this to the rest of the crew and what I should write in the ships log, but by the time I had gotten onboard a great storm came upon us and we were accosted for many days. My original logs on that mysterious Island were lost in the tumult and now this is all I can remember about that night on that unnamed, uncharted Island.”