I have been alone on this island for more days than I care to count. Forced to estimate, I would guess that I have been here for at least one year. I am no Robinson Crusoe, and the solitude is beginning to prey on my mind. In fact, I believe it is starting to destroy whatever sense of sanity I once possessed. An island is no place for a sane man to remain sane, and certainly, I am sane no more.

It hasn't always been this way. In my dimmest memories, the ones that have not been eaten away at or obliterated completely by demented and tortured loneliness, I can remember the times when I was surrounded by people. At times, even, I can remember my wife and children. How I miss them! Even before I was stranded here they had long been gone from me, killed under circumstances still to raw and painful for me to recall. With them gone, there is no one to miss me. It is doubtful that anyone has any idea where I am, or surely I would have been rescued by now. As the days wear on, I am less hopeful that I will ever be found. Most likely I will remain alone here on this island until the day I day, and lately I have been wishing that day to arrive soon. There is nothing here to keep me alive. I am surrounded by overwhelming and suffocating feet of grass and dwarfed by trees that tower miles over my head. I have no chance of ever leaving this place unless I do so by my own death.

My wife, a devoutly religious woman, always used to say that death should be viewed as an honor and a blessing. Death, she believed, brought us to closer union with God. I pray every day that her death has done that for her, and that mine will do the same. I have no doubts that she is in Heaven, and I only pray that I may soon join her. It is unbearable to think of my entire family rejoicing at God's side while I remain alone-stranded with no hope of rescue or discovery. I wish with all my heart that they had never left this world, but the past cannot be changed. I can, however, do my best to reunite myself with the family I have lost, for there is nothing in this world to make me want to stay. It has all been left behind.
I have tried to bring about my demise by my own hands, going days willing myself to resist the hunger and thirst that seizes hold of me and allow myself to waste away. Always, I have failed, and always I have given into my needs and only lengthened what is to be a torturous and isolated existence.

If I am to die of my own volition, I realize I must take more decisive action. With all these trees around, certainly a quick, clean hanging would be of little difficulty. In fact, even now as I gaze up at one towering branch I can see that a noose has already been fastened to it. Odd, for surely it is I who must have placed it there at some point, but at the moment I cannot recall doing so, or even where it is that I found the length of rope. I suppose the particulars aren't important. What matters is that the rope is there, and I will use it. A quick, painless death, a death like that experienced by my family, is preferable to the endless dying I've been experiencing alone here on this island.

Excerpt from The Morris County Gazette: November 1, 1999

A grim discovery was made early this morning at 1200 Plum Tree Lane. The body of Mr. Thomas Morehead, a 10 year resident of the community, was spotted at 6 a.m. by a neighbor passing the house on his way to work. Mr. Morehead had evidently hanged himself from a tree located in his back yard. Police were called immediately and a complete search was made of the property and house. In the basement of the residence, 3 more bodies, later identified as Mrs. Elaine Morehead and her three young children, were found lying side by side on the floor. The cause of their death has yet to be determined, for the bodies were in an advanced stage of decomposition. Neighbors were horrified by the discovery. None could recall having seen any member of the Morehead family over the past 7 days, but recalled that Mr. Morehead had spoken to them of an upcoming extended vacation. An investigation into these deaths is still under way.

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