Blog 4-The Dying Fire-Ralph's Journal

Suddenly, smoke rises up over the mountain. It trickles into the sky, less real than the mirages that shimmer at the edge of our vision when we look out over the sea. But is the little bit of smoke enough? Is it even the full signal fire? I look out at the opalescent sea. It is clear and blue for miles unending. Still and calm it seems unending. An impenetrable barrier. But something moves out there on the faraway horizon. A small dot moves across where the sea meats the sky. A small dot that could only be a ship! I cry out.
"A ship!" Simon, Piggy and Maurice all look up.
"A ship?" Maurice speaks quickly and incredulously. "Where?" Simon has spotted it now.
"There!" he points to it. We can feel our excitement growing. The fire is of sudden and complete importance. Piggy whispers shrilly.
"But the fire's gone out!" We race up the mountain. Not wearing anything the brambles scratch our skin and leave us bleeding. I am in the front, Maurice a close second. This has become a race against time. Us against the malevolent persona of the island, against time. I get to a bare spot. The smoke has slowed. A terrible choice stands before me. I glance back over my shoulder. Piggy labors up the mountain. If I wait for him to get to the top then the ship may pass. But if I don't wait for him then the fire might be out and I will have to watch as the ship moves out of sight while I am powerless to stop it. I make my choice. There's a better chance of success if I get to the top.
"Oh God, Oh God!" I cry out in torment. A little whimper escapes my throat. I race further up the mountain. I groan in horror as I see the signal fire. Like some monstrous nightmare the fire is out. I feel rage bubble up in my throat. Jack and his hunters are nowhere to be seen. If they had tended the fire then the ship would be headed our way and rescue would be at hand. I can see Piggy laboriously clambering up the mountain. It's painful to watch him. I seethe with anger at Jack. This is his fault. When I find him I'll give him such a tongue-lashing. What ever he was doing is a meaningless irrelevance. The fact remains that he has betrayed his most important duty. Soon Maurice, Simon, and Piggy get up here. Piggy is last, huffing as if he's just run a marathon.
"The fire's out." I state flatly. I pause for a moment to let the awful implications sink in. Within seconds Simon's shy, dark face has turned an ashen white. He has evidentially imagined the consequences for this. Stuck on an island forever, with no hope of a rescue.
"This is preposterous!" Piggy insists. "We give Jack one duty and he fails." I hush him even though I'm thinking the same thing. In a little while the errant boys come into sight. Jack is proudly at the head of the procession. My fury with him grows. The twins, Sam and Eric, follow right behind him. The hold a mangled carcass. That of a pig. The fact that Jack has finally succeeded should make me happy. It does not. As they get even closer I can hear them chanting. the sound carries eerily to where we stand. The group comes our way. Jack dances forward. His gyrations only serve to make me angrier.
"We caught a pig!" Jack shouts. "We got 'er! The twins got knocked over and I cut 'er throat!"
"You let the fire go out." I say. Something in this makes him uneasy.
"We had to have everyone for the ring."
"You let the fire go out." A simple statement.
"Look, I told you. We needed everyone."
"There was a ship." A concerted wail arises from the hunters. "And you let the fire go out." Jack is even more uneasy.
"We got the pig. They'll be more ships." Piggy speaks up.
"You and your pigs, Jack Merridew! We need to be rescued." Jack hates taking criticism from anyone and certainly not from Piggy.
"You didn't do nothing, Fatty." he says viciously. He punches Piggy in the stomach. Piggy is pushed backwards. Even though Piggy can be a bit of a nuisance this seems a little cruel. I intend to intervene. As I move forward Jack smacks Piggy's head. His glasses go flying off to land with a tinkle. Piggy wails.
"My specs." Blindly, he crawls over the rocks toward them. His outstretched, groping hands are slightly pathetic. Simon gets to his glasses and hands them to him.
"One side's broken." he says solemnly.
Piggy wails again. "You broke my specs." he shoves them onto his nose. Simon is right. One side of the glasses is broken. Jack raises a hand threateningly toward Piggy and he clambers away. Jack mimics his movements.
"That was a dirty trick." Jack looks at me. He gauges the mood of the audience and decides that at this moment they are my men.
"I'm sorry. We won't let the fire go out again." The crowd is now Jack's. His handsome "apology" turned their opinions around.
I repeat, "That was a dirty trick." Jack shifts.
"Let's build up the fire again to cook our meat." The crowd agrees. Except I am standing where the fire was. It is a test to see if I still have any power left over this rabble. I do. They are forced to build the fire again some three meters away. Jack grinds his teeth but is unable to change that fact. They cook their meat over the fire. Disorganized, they cook themselves more than the meat. I intended to refuse but instead the sight of good food thawed me out. I accepted a hunk of meat and gnawed on it hungrily. Piggy comes to get his share also. Jack refuses.
"You didn't hunt." Piggy whines.
"No more did Ralph," he gestures to me, "Nor Simon." Guiltily self-conscious, Simon shoves his meat to Piggy. This infuriates Jack. It means he has a lessening hold on Simon. He cuts another hunk off the pig and shoves it at Simon.
"Eat, damn you. I hunted and brought you meat. Now eat." Bewildered, Simon picks up the meat and begins to eat. But I am not easy in my mind. The signal fire is like a symbol for our hope and it's extinguishing means that civilization is fading among the hunters. The dying fire is also dying hope and the smoke rises into the air, a mournful last stand of our original goals.