Make Your Move Katherine

The Island

Katherine looked at the beautiful sight of the green trees, on the red soil that occupied the island front, above the steep shores and was speechless. From the distance, she thought it might have been crabs, she recalled she had seen a documentary about crabs that made an entire small island seem red but as the large boat neared it, she saw she had been wrong.

Red earth wasn’t all that strange but this was the first time she was actually seeing it. And it was an entire island too. Kat looked at the graying clouds that seemed above and knew it meant that rain would be upon the island later.

“The sand was once hard rock you see but it went through a conversion process, rich in fertilizer although it doesn’t look that way. It’s filled with iron and aluminoxane thousands if not millions of years ago- I see you don’t believe me,” Anthony smiled as he looked at a stupefied looking Katherine as he jumped off the small boat and landed on the rocks that were cut into steps and held her hand as she stepped out.

Both of them wore similar clothing, trouser pants and plaid shirts, hats on their heads. The boots they wore were from the station back on the main island as they had to leave their unsuitable shoes behind.

“That would mean it was once an active volcano?” she asked as she looked at the soil that lay beneath her boots. She was awed by the seemingly untouched earth without the garbage and filth around. “But isn’t that a danger to the people that live here?”

“Yes, I guess but only the farmers live here with their families. The volcano is dormant, Your Majesty.”

“Can you stop with the title Anthony?” Kat asked him as she squinted her eyes looking into the mountain top, shading her eyes with her hand as she did so, despite the hat she wore.

“No, Your Majesty, it is disrespectful to-”

“It’s a beautiful day and hearing that saddens me. Nothing about it- can you just not call me today?”

“Your Majesty-”

Turning to him she muttered, “I feel like screaming when I hear it. Nothing about the castle is good to me Anthony. It’s a prison to me. This is heaven right now,” she spun around closing her eyes liking the salty smell, “-let me enjoy it…please.”

The Royal Guard stared at her before releasing a long breath and nodded, “I won’t address you by your name but I won’t use your title either.”

Kat smiled gratefully at him and then spun around again, running on the sand, wanting to pull off her shoes as she ran, for she loved the sand on her bare toes.

The man that was standing on the shoreline awaiting their approach, walked the short way to the boat and tied the rope onto a post as he grinned at them, clearly either loving her response or glad to have visitors.

“Gus, this is-” Anthony started saying but Kat liked the fact that he didn’t bow low to her. She was quite overwhelmed with all that and wanted to be treated like a regular person. As Oscar put it, ‘like a commoner’.

“My name’s Katherine,” she interrupted and smiled at the bare-chested older-looking man, who wore nothing except a pair of tattered old cutoff jeans short. He was good-looking and muscular, with long sun-bleached brown hair that he had tied in a ponytail. His toes were covered in the red dirt and everything about him screamed fisherman but Anthony stated it was a farming island. So, he was a farmer.

“Yes Katherine, and this is Gus, the foreman,” Anthony muttered as Gus shook her hand before leading the way into the island. She looked back at the calm waters behind them and saw the far-off island they had come from in the distance, some miles away. The huge red part of the nation’s red, blue and green flag is very noticeable, even from here.

“Come, my wife is still cooking lunch so we have an hour to explore, yes?” Gus says excitedly as he took a bend on the path and disappeared behind the clay mountain wall. Anthony took her hand as the climb was a bit steep and Kat was mesmerized by what lay before her.

Brilliant red, orange, and even purple colors lay before her eyes in the distance. The soil was in different shades- “What?”

Katherine, in her entire life, had never seen such an unusual, unrealistic sight before her. Yet she knew it was real for she heard the birds chirping and a dog barking in the near distance. She felt the clear wind against her face and smelled the clean hot air.

Heavy pieces of machinery nearby could be heard and were told they were plowing the land for the next crop. Miles upon miles of green stood on one side and the other side was the colorful plowed dirt.

“We rotate the crops,” Gus explained to her and she nodded not understanding what that meant for plant life was not in her expertized life of concrete jungle living.

He pointed to a huge shed and said, “That’s the fertilizer storage area and there and there,” he pointed to two other galvanized rooves in the far distance and Kat nodded. “I won’t go near there if I were you,” he smiled when she frowned and fanning the air in front of his face, he added, “It smells. And there are the trucks,” he pointed to another galvanized roof, “All vehicles go there, as it’s easier,” he explained to her.

“On the other island there,” he pointed to an island that as queen, she was supposed to know was situated behind the mountain, “is another type of futuristic farming but I prefer this. Too new technological for me,” he grinned scratching the scalp beneath his thinning hairline.

Less than an hour later, she had seen the vegetation of a good farming approach. Everything looked 'picstafamous', she had thought as she walked around, pitying her non-phone in her pocket. Even the sun wasn’t too hot. It was just perfect.

“And this is the village. We have two, I live in this one and on the other side there is another, maybe one five hundred people on average in my village but the other one may be three hundred or so.”

Five hundred farmers? When Anthony had stated only the farmers and their families occupied the island, she had assumed maybe a few- less than twenty or so farmers. Not an entire small village, no two villages.

Gus ended the tour in front of his house. Like all the others, his house was made from board material but like actual houses and not like cabins.

He had a small porch with two wooded rocking chairs. Katherine smiled, for it reminded her of her friend whom she envied for having grandparents. On the inside, the house was clean and well furnished, though not overly. Kat got a warm vibe about it.

“Kids are at school,” Gus says when he saw Katherine looking at the pictures, in the plastic frames that hung on a wall. “They go to school on the mainland and won’t be back till four. This is Pearl, my wife.”

Kat’s eyes did not hide her surprise as she saw the woman whom he introduced as his wife. She did not know what to expect but this Goddess was not it. The woman’s slender figure boasted of its beauty as did her facial bone structure and long black hair that was tied at the nape of her neck with an elastic band.

Gus either looked older for his age because of the hot sun he was always in or he was actually older than his wife, for she looked pretty young.

“Hi,” Pearl smiled at her and she held her hand out to Kat, who looked at the chairs and then back at the woman’s flat stomach before looking her in the eyes and shaking her hand. She was trying to figure out how her stomach looked so normal through her fitted dress. “Nice to meet you, when Gus told me we had visitors, I was so happy for we hardly see anyone new in these parts,” the woman gushed, revealing her perfect even white teeth before gesturing with her hand, for Kat to sit.

Anthony led the way to the back of the house where a huge rectangular wooden table was surrounded by eight chairs. “You hurt my feelings, Pearl. I visit as much as I could,” Anthony teased her as he took his seat next to Kat smiling.

“Hush dear brother, I see you once a year maybe,” Pearl waved his words away as she turned to take her seat also after she removed the covers from the dishes at the center of the table.

Brother? Pearl and Anthony were siblings? Gus was his brother-in-law?

As if reading her thoughts Anthony nodded as she gazed at him with widened eyes. As she stared at Pearl who was serving the food, she saw the resemblance. Yes, they did indeed have the same mouth and ears.

Kat smiled. The first real genuine smile she had since she …well she couldn’t remember. As much as she would say since Oscar, that was fiction. But she had never been so depressed since meeting him again.

Since her father had first gotten sick, Kat’s smile was scarce. Simon was her only real friend that checked in on her and even went out of his way to ensure she was good. Before that, it was her mother’s disappearance that had vanquished her warm smile. Now that thought of it…she had been alive but not living, for the longest while.

Oscar has just added to her grief but she did choose it, technically… over money.

She shook her head to clear her blue thinking and concentrated on the conversation that was happening, “I think he’s doing a marvelous job so far and I look forward to seeing his plans Tony, I even heard he was getting a team to put online.” Pearl was saying to Gus and the Royal Guard. Kat excused herself to wash her hands as the meal was over.

“She's just adorable. Mom would have loved your Katherine,” Pearl was saying about her when she came back to her seat and Anthony chimed in, “No, and Anthony chimed in, “No, she’s- under my protection.”

Kat found herself blushing at the same time rational thoughts of Anthony not blowing her cover pleased her. She enjoyed today and would like to finish the day as just Kat and not the heavy burden of Queen.

“Hmm, is she?” Gus laughed as he patted Anthony’s back and clinked his glass with his wife’s grinning. "Tell me, Katherine, do you enjoy a fag?"

Kat furrowed her forehead and Anthony explained, "He wants to know if you smoke."