Episode II
The purple-hatted fellow on the raft continued to engage the man with the telescope.
"If we can figure out where in the boat the guy with the purple hat might sit......then well the other people on the raft might think we're really doing something because..... he's got a purple hat on!".
Some of the carpenters and engineers wanted to append some sense to this soliloquy. But, a few days before the ship went down, some of them had seen the man with the telescope while on deck, pointing to someone.
The next day the someone was no longer anywhere to be seen.
Some said a helicopter, others merely shrugged. Nevertheless the Pointing Man, as he came to be known, made all of the carpenters and engineers feel uneasy.
"But Shit!" they all secretly thought "It seems to make more sense to just get on with building the boat: we have all the tools and skills we need! We can save a good few of the imperiled rafters."
But the pointing man took the people on the beach that could not help with the boat (or just couldn't be bothered) to take turns looking and pointing at the guy in the purple hat.
They'd draw with sticks in the sand and talk about how the guy in the purple hat might have all the secrets
to the problem.
The carpenters and engineers tried to keep going.
But now there were people in the recent formed "Pointing club" were using some of the palm tree wood to make little huts and signs
with weird pictures of the guy in the purple hat.
"The Rafters are smiling" yelled the Pointing Man. "They must think we're doing something good!" he mused.
"Keep it up!"
Episode III
Some of the carpenters and engineers drifted over toward The Pointing Club. They seemed to have abandoned the idea of building boats to get out to the raft before it sank Completely.
Those that remained on the boat building exercise looked in horror as their brothers and sisters now appeared to be making small replicas of the raft, complete with minature guy with purple hat (a berry on a pebble) surrounded by other flotsam and jetsome representing the other imperiled rafters . They would place their models into rock pools.
“The pools serve as the bay” the pointing man explained”. he said
“Now, WATCH!” he gently wedged the mopdel on a pile of sea shells piled in the centre. Look at this he said. With a deft nudge, he pushed the purple berried pebble off of the model raft and into the water. Gasps emergred from the pointing club as the little raft freed itself from the sea shells and into the rock pool. “I was right!” he said. We need to do this over and over again
The people on the raft were encouraged, but for many of them it had been too late: they had already fallen through.
But they could see all the excitement at the waters edge and they assumed that something marvelous was being done to save them. One of them had noticed that some of the ships supplies were caught under the raft.
“ They ‘ve got supplies” said the pointing club who currently had the honor of using the telescope. “What! Give me that” said that the pointing man. The former accountant was right: people on the raft were carefully sharing out tinned produce and bottles of water.
We need to let them know that we need that stuff to save them properly thought the Pointing man
Meanwhile the pointing club that had snuck off to make themselves increasingly comfortable huts, made little bracelets and necklaces from twine and pieces of wood that they said represented people on the raft. Some of the people had family on the raft and the Pointing Club had to make lots more. The people on the beach would forage for hours to find supplies for the pointing club and to buy more island jewellery.
