The sand shimmers gold, blurry in the haze heat thrown down by the sun. No living creature moves on this deserted jewel of land somewhere deep in the vast lostness of ocean. No tiny crabs snicker their way across the sand, no toucans with their colourful beaks prance around in search of toucan food. There are no puffins either (they have colourful beaks too). There is not a thing living here. Not a dormouse, not a sausage dog. Not a sausage.

Cool water laps the beach, wavelets soft and gentle but crowned with dragon’s teeth that spell certain doom to the hull of any crude raft launched from the shore. It’s lucky that this island is deserted, so that won’t be happening either.

If anyone had ever actually visited this island then they might have named it Dragon Island. It’s not shaped like a dragon, and no dragons live here, or have ever visited. But if someone had ever actually visited this island then perhaps they’d have named it Dragon Island just to mess with people.

Wow! This one’s called Dragon Island! Do you think…? Could dragons…live there?

Just think. Hordes of daytrippers and paddlesteamers, all heading out to this remote dot of land in the hopes of glimpsing a dragon! Ha, ha. Bunch of losers, jokes on them!

But of course, no one has ever visited this island, so that’s not going to happen.

No one is ever going to taste the wonderful pineapples that grow on this island. They look really nice, all green and spikey, ripe and round, sweet and juicy. Definitely so sweet and tasty that if anyone did visit this island they would gorge themselves on the sweet juicy flesh and no doubt eat so fast that they end up with hiccups. But no one has visited this exotic deserted desert island for dessert. Slackers.

But what’s this? A sudden sound? Is that a cry? Is that a voice? Does something stir in this desolate place? Is that the sound of life to be heard? It’s a cracking sound, such as might be made by a tree falling in a forest, or perhaps a tall man with bad circulation might make at a dinner party as he swoons and cracks his head on the ornate foot of a carved wood umbrella stand.

Does this sound presage that something is actually going to happen? Perhaps something in the forest that hulks menacingly just at the edge of the sun-drenched beach. Surely, hopefully, possibly, something will happen now.

And, maybe it does. Maybe something super exciting is happening in the forest, but since this island is completely deserted there’s no one here to hear it.