Bill and Steve

AUSTRALIA REPORTS RESCUE AT SEA OF TWO MEN ADRIFT IN ICEBOX...my top headline of the week. Two Burmese fishermen claim to have fallen off a boat and survived twenty-five days and a Category 1 storm living on rainwater and small fish regurgitated by two birds that landed on the icebox. Based on their minimal injuries, doctors are questioning their story. Hmmm. Imagine if their names were Bill and Steve. Bill says to Steve, "You know, I'm bored with my life and so are you. All we do is work and drink beer. I have an ice-box big enough for both of us. Let's see if it floats." The picture in The New York Times shows the vast blue of the ocean off Australia's northern coast, the tiny brilliant red of an icebox, and two men in it waving their shirts. Was it twenty-five days? Or three? Reminds me a little of The Life of Pi, a fantasy by Yann Martel about a boy and a tiger who, for countless months, cohabit a lifeboat. Frankly, The Life of Pi is more believable, but, maybe, these two men were desperate for an adventure--or a book deal.