Read Online Red Sand by Ronan Cray - Free Book Online

answered that it only took him three hours to catch the fish he needed to feed his family. ‘What do you do the rest of the day?’ The man replied that he plays with his children, takes a nap, walks with his wife on the beach, and eats the fish for dinner with his family and friends. The executive is shocked. He says, ‘Don’t you realize, if you worked even six hours a day, you could double your income. You could hire another fisherman to help you, which would increase your output even more. Eventually you could buy a boat to catch even more fish. After that, you could afford to employ everyone in your village, hire a fleet of boats, open a factory. Eventually you could retire rich in a big mansion by the sea.’
    “’What would I do then?’ asked the fisherman,
    “’Why, anything you want!’ said the executive. ‘You’d have time to play with your children, take a nap, walk on the beach with your wife, and spend time with your friends and family.’
    “’But, Senor, that is what I do now.’ Each were convinced the other was a complete fool.
    “I heard this story years ago at a conference, but I never really understood it until we found ourselves reaching for fish with our own two hands. Now, we work harder than three hours a day of course, but that work is our own.” He held out his hands. “I eat what I catch with these hands. Every moment not spent obtaining sustenance, is my own.”
    “I know all of you want to get home as soon as possible, but while you’re here I hope you understand that we’ve been able to find a home here, in this place, on this island, that we were never able to find out there. We are happy to share that with you.”
    “We can’t offer you a resort, but I can extend to you an invitation. When it comes time for you to leave, you are welcome to stay. By then, you might want to. It isn’t easy, being a survivor. You spend as much time looking back as you do looking forward. Your old life did not die naturally, it was abducted. A part of you still believes you will find it someday, and that part of you prevents you from living a whole life. After you survive, life is only half lived. The other half we reserve for ghosts.
    “I leave you with this final thought: Life isn’t worth dying for.
    “I hope you enjoyed the meal.”
    Lauren did enjoy the meal. A terrible lethargy struck her. Here eyelids drooped, but just as they closed Tuk clapped his hands. “Good! You are fed! Now you must see the rest of our island.”
    They filed out the door back into the unrelenting sun. Lauren took Carter’s hand as her eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight. He did not pull away. She leaned on him slightly, still tired, but enlivened by the daylight.
    Tuk led the column of survivors along the Great Salt Wall, naming it such, and stopped them at the top of a small hill. Frozen lava billowed out below them across the Flow. The landscape looked wounded, dotted between the hill and the ocean with what could only be described as pools of blood. Multi-hued layers of plastic covered the pools like gauze. Lauren nearly threw up. 
    “These are our salterns. We pump seawater into depressions in the lava flows to form saltwater pools. Throughout the day, the water evaporates. The evaporated water collects on the tarps and runs into collection barrels. From this we obtain our fresh water. We harvest the remaining salt to preserve our food in the absence of refrigeration.” He paused, noticing the sick coloration of his audience. “An algae called Dunaliella salina thrives in our salt ponds, providing a good source of beta carotene. The red coloration is caused by halobacterium . It is native to the island and harmless to humans.”
    He extended his arm beyond the pools. “Out there, we net our fish in a cove. Our diet is made up mostly of meat from the sea. The vegetables you enjoy come from there.” He pointed to the right where translucent sheds pushed off the mountain onto the Flow. Tiny huts of