The Island of the Colorblind

I look at the cycad seeds curiously, thinking of Beata’s words, how they float and can perhaps survive long immersion in sea-water. Most, no doubt, have dropped from the trees above me, but some, perhaps, are nomads, brought here across the sea from Guam, or more distant islands – perhaps even Yap or Palau, or beyond.

A large wave comes in, lifts a couple of the seeds, and they float, bobbing, by the shore. Five minutes later, one of the seeds has been cast up again on the shore, but the other is still bobbing atop the waves, a few feet from land. I wonder where it will go, whether it will survive, will be cast back here on Rota, or taken hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles to another island in the Pacific. Ten minutes more and I can no longer see it – it is launched, like a little ship, on its journey on the high seas.

Journals

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—‘The last people alive.’ Nature 370: 331-32 (August 1994).

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