The rescuer's eye view of John and Phil.
Aug. 1st, 2015 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreadedcandiru2As we're about to see, the townspeople assume that Phil's empty canoe means that its occupants are quite probably at the bottom of the lake being eaten by the pickerel they were trying to catch because they assume that the only reason anyone of average intelligence would not be found with his craft is that he's a posthumous part of the scene. As we're also about to see, the island they wound up on is thought of as, if not a popular destination for campers owing to its remoteness, at the very least one in which people do use as a fishing spot. This means that when they do find John and Phil, the SARtechs seem to be genuinely surprised that the two of them are alive, well and able to almost joke about their situation. While they're allowed to have their happy reunion with Elly and Georgia, what probably does happen when the ladies are sitting in the waiting room while the boys get checked out is that the head of the air search-and-rescue team probably has some pointed questions for John and Phil.
The most obvious question would have to be the one relating to Phil's competence as a canoeist. As we know, he swamped the canoe by steering it into the wind like an idiot and he and John abandoned it to swim for shore like the panicky imbeciles they are. Did they not realize at all what the implications of an abandoned canoe were? Did it not occur to either of them that the general consensus was that the woman who actually knew where they intended to go and her friend might end up having to identify their remains?
Of course, that was not the most devastating little question that they'd be asked. What interests me is where they landed. As we saw, there was part of an old shack on that island that they'd made into a lean-to. A normal person of average intelligence and possessing something I like to call a survival instinct would come to the conclusion that this place is a campground of some sort. It hasn't seen active use in a while but, as I mentioned earlier, the men flying the rescue plane thought it quite likely that John and Phil were camping there. What this means is that there's an easy way to get to the mainland. There might even be signs of civilization like a marina on the shore that they might have seen had they had the rather obvious idea of walking around the island to see if there was a way of getting to dry land. John and Phil did no such thing. This means that the head of the rescue team would end up asking the two clods if they wanted to die of exposure fifty feet away from rescue.
This, I should think, is why it is that John spends most of this August hiding from the world because of some sort of vaguely defined humiliation. Simply put, someone made him admit that he doesn't belong in the wilds because he's too soft and stupid to endure anything more traumatic than light drizzle and having to admit being in the wrong is, as always, something too horrible to bear.
The most obvious question would have to be the one relating to Phil's competence as a canoeist. As we know, he swamped the canoe by steering it into the wind like an idiot and he and John abandoned it to swim for shore like the panicky imbeciles they are. Did they not realize at all what the implications of an abandoned canoe were? Did it not occur to either of them that the general consensus was that the woman who actually knew where they intended to go and her friend might end up having to identify their remains?
Of course, that was not the most devastating little question that they'd be asked. What interests me is where they landed. As we saw, there was part of an old shack on that island that they'd made into a lean-to. A normal person of average intelligence and possessing something I like to call a survival instinct would come to the conclusion that this place is a campground of some sort. It hasn't seen active use in a while but, as I mentioned earlier, the men flying the rescue plane thought it quite likely that John and Phil were camping there. What this means is that there's an easy way to get to the mainland. There might even be signs of civilization like a marina on the shore that they might have seen had they had the rather obvious idea of walking around the island to see if there was a way of getting to dry land. John and Phil did no such thing. This means that the head of the rescue team would end up asking the two clods if they wanted to die of exposure fifty feet away from rescue.
This, I should think, is why it is that John spends most of this August hiding from the world because of some sort of vaguely defined humiliation. Simply put, someone made him admit that he doesn't belong in the wilds because he's too soft and stupid to endure anything more traumatic than light drizzle and having to admit being in the wrong is, as always, something too horrible to bear.
