It was easily late morning by the time he awoke, roused by the smell of the sea air and various birds telling him things he still couldn't understand. It was an acceptable shortcoming, he reasoned, since he had only been here five days and learning to interpret their unique language would surely take at least seven days. Breakfast, now of principal concern to our lately dormant subject, was easily produced, for coconuts abound on the small island that has recently played host to our protagonist.

Meal finished, our intrepid anonym, knowing the importance of keeping active while stranded, turns to ongoing island business. First order of business is keeping track of how long he's been stranded and, to that end, he moves a stone from the larger pile of rocks by his bed to the smaller; to his mind, the larger pile – now holding five rocks, to the smaller pile's six – is running low and will have to be restocked, a job for tomorrow.

The main task for the day was that of building his shelter, which had come a surprisingly long way in the six days he had been stranded. It was now, by all accounts, a rather impressive construction despite his often restrained attitude towards the work. Yesterday, for example, he had done little more than mark out where he intended to build the fourth room and the day before, he hadn't done any work, a reward for the hard work he had done so far – by his calculation, he had therefore created this fine, if humble, abode in as few as three days and, being capable of such, the house should be finished presently enough.

Before starting work on the latest room to be added to his creation, our notable, perceiving his stockpile of wood to be neighbouring the tall trees of the shaded side of the island, sets about moving it beyond the shorter, denser trees to the sun-ward side, that it might dry sooner and thereby be better suited to its task. This done and fairly exhausted, he postpones further work in favour of lunch.

Lunch is, by far, the highlight of island life and, after some time in the water, he find a selection of fish forthcoming and they, in turn, each find a place around the fire. Unfortunately, the traditional accompaniments to fish are scarce on the island, so the meal is consumed au naturel and the object of our attention affords himself a nap under the cover provided by one of the trees.

Around mid-afternoon, the islander wakes once more, prepared to continue the work on his house. To his dismay, however, he has to put his work on hold, finding his stockpile to be far from the desirable heat of the light filtering through the distant leaves of the tall trees of the sun-ward side of the island and sets about rectifying this problem. Some time later, with all as it should be and fully prepared to continue building tomorrow, he decides that this is as good a time as any to call it a day, satisfied with a job well done.

In bed that night, our displaced subject reflects upon the deeds of the day. Paper for a journal being a forgotten luxury on the island, he checks the smaller pile of rocks and starts thinking aloud. Day five was a good day, he made some progress and tomorrow he was certain he'd get a great deal of work accomplished on the house, it'd be finished soon, as sure as his name was... name was... well, he'd be finished soon at any rate.

Some time around late morning, the long-suffering, emaciated frame of our recent focus rises once more to foreign scents and sounds. He moves a rock from the larger pile to the smaller pile, signalling the start of day six and takes a moment to notice that the larger pile now only has five rocks and should probably be restocked soon, before pulling on clothes to which time had not been kind – and had done so in large quantities – and leaving his shelter in search of breakfast.