Sand wormed through his toes, swallowing his feet with its gritty mouth. Skin baked slow under the brash light brightening the briny air. Birds squawked, waves crashed and rolled, creation continued underneath the salty foam roiling back from where it left. The straw in the polished steel vessel contained a fresh, icy quench as he siphoned it up into his mouth.
Funny to him, the world was a maelstrom of confusion and wanton, willful selfish ignorance. Cities burned, citizens followed to death, countries failed, armies crumbled. But his worries didn’t find him here. And it wasn’t that he hid from them. They never came. He tossed them into the sea when he ran aground.
Nature provided here, amply. For now, he figured the solar panels powering the refrigerator would keep him in ice for his purified water. When it didn’t, coconuts would provide that. He had enough food on the ship to comfortably last ten or twelve years, more if he stayed disciplined.
For him, the most disturbing part of all this was how much he never wanted to go back. Miles from the mainland, he could see the fires light up the night skies; by day, smoke billowed across a setting sun. Burn, he thought, burn.
He sipped again from his ice water and watched the skies streaked with contrails of fighter jets, black smoke of burning buildings, and birds. He loved following the birds. They didn’t seem to mind the madness any more than he did. Made sense to him. They didn’t need to stay. They could take flight and find another place to be free.
At first, he panicked after coming ashore. Had to get back to civilization somehow, but as the days passed, that changed. A realization dawned on him. The only safe harbor was an abandoned one. It made no difference what side you were on. You would feed the beast. Your broken life and will stripped from you with the flesh from your bone.
Cool, cool water on a sandy beach in a tropical climate. Palms for shade, sand for a rest, aqua water clear as crystal. This was a nice place to watch the apocalypse, indeed.