Robinson Crusoe Ltd.

A tycoon’s yacht splits open like a ripe gourd on the jagged molars of an unmapped atoll, pitching a linen-suited plutocrat, his tremulous ward, and her poker-faced maid into the lap of a jungle that smells of rusted doubloons and guano. The island, once Crusoe’s private purgatory, has since curdled into a carnivale of painted warriors who wear parrot-feather crowns and trade in gunpowder gossip. Shackled in a bamboo bazaar, the trio await their marrow’s raffle until an ostrich—taller than a ship’s mainmast, eyes like twin eclipses—struts through the embers, deposits a clutch of sky-blue eggs that tick louder than pocket-watches, and detonates the night into confetti of fire and bone. What follows is not rescue but renegotiation: the tycoon barters his cufflinks for a hut, the maid teaches cannibal children hopscotch, the guardian rewrites island law with a quill of flamingo plume, and the ostrich—part deus ex machina, part Wall Street courier—becomes the new mint, trading detonations for coconuts until the horizon itself files for bankruptcy.