The Night I Met You

To practice fiction writing, I had the idea to take snippets from movies or TV shows and turn them into short stories. I already have dialogue and characters, all I have to do is make it read well. My first project is one of my all-time favorite scenes from LOST. This comes from the Season 3 episode "Greatest Hits." The clip is here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=5bGiJ-9DwWk

I was walking through the wreckage. Groups huddled here and there around makeshift campfires. Everyone’s adrenaline had finally worn off, and people just looked tired more than anything else. Scanning their faces, I saw no fear, no pain, not even apprehension, just fatigue. Some of these people probably knew each other. Husbands were probably reassuring their wives that rescue was on the way, holding them close, thanking God for their own survival. It would have been nice to have someone to curl up to like that, but I wasn’t jealous. Settling down with someone had never been my style. Anyway, I wasn’t the only loner; there were plenty of people sitting by themselves, staring into the fire, rubbing cuts and bruises absentmindedly. I was looking around to confirm that I wasn’t alone in being alone when I saw her.

She was beautiful. Blonde, about my height, probably three times as wide due to the almost perfect semicircle that arched from below her breasts to her waist. The pregnancy was important because it reassured me that my attraction to her wasn’t sexual. She was also alone, looking for a place to turn in for the night. I watched her select a patch of sand sheltered by part of the wall of the main cabin and suddenly realized that I was walking towards her. It didn’t hit me until that moment how much I wanted to talk to someone. I hesitated for a moment, pulled back the hood of my jacket, ran my hand through my hair, picked up an airplane blanket at my feet. I smiled and raised my hand in a half wave as I reached her.

“Hiya,” I said. I held out my opening line. “Do you want a blanket?”

She looked up at me and smiled. “Oh, thanks. I got one.” There it was, on her other side. Of course. Stupid.

I kept my arms extended, though. “Well, you’re warming for two. Take mine.”

She kept looking at me for a second, then down at her feet, a gesture of concession. “Thank you.” She reached out to take it. Our fingers brushed.

I sat down beside her and rubbed my hands together, to stall for time as much as to warm my fingers. Humor. Go with humor. “So, first plane crash?”

“What gave it away?”

“Ah, you can always spot the newbies.” She laughed, and because she laughed, I did, too. Whatever initial awkwardness or tension she might have felt had dissipated into the night. We were together, had survived a colossally rare event together, and we were able to laugh about it. It seemed to me that that was all that mattered. “We’re gonna be okay, you know.”

Her smile faded. “Are we?” An honest question.

“We’re alive,” I told her. “We’re on a beautiful island. We’ll sleep under the stars, and before you know it, the helicopters’ll come and take us home.”

“You really think they’ll find us?”

It was something that had to be on everyone’s mind, at least subconsciously. Of course I had no way of knowing if they were on their way, if they even knew where to look, but I’m sure no one believed that we wouldn’t be rescued immediately. Rescue was an expectation, not a hope. “Well, yeah, why wouldn’t they?”

I could tell by her expression that we shared the same optimism, that she had been looking for someone to confirm it. She made eye contact with me. “Thanks.”

“I’m Charlie.” I held out my hand.

“I’m Claire.” She shook it. My hands were calloused from decades of guitar playing. Hers were soft. “Nice to meet you, Charlie.”

We pulled our hands back but I kept looking at her. She had blue eyes. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said.