Assuming you had ample opportunity to tell whoever was willing to listen to you on the Island all about the exploding atoll, I think you can stop calling out the fact that you survived yet another life threatening encounter with Nature…  You’d best get busy writing that story, Mark!

And the look on Cherry’s face suggests that she’s heard quite enough if it too!

So here we are back in the mountains of North Georgia, awaiting the next plot twist…  let’s hope that it involves an actual villain… heck I’d even settle for an old-fashioned poaching yarn at this point…  but suffice to say this is the last entry I will make in the “Honey and Darling” category.  It’s been with us since June of last year!!  Ugh!

Not sure I even want to go there… How would Mark & Cherry enjoy a vacation?  Let’s hope we don’t have to witness that… let’s hope we fast forward to Lost Forest where they will be reunited with the Foundling and the Father-in-Law…

Yes Mark, you are… and I am sure that you aren’t even channeling Emerson, Lake and Palmer…

OK, he’s new at the comedy thing, and it shows.  So lighten up, dude.  I’m pretty sure that Bill Ellis knows that you didn’t blow up an island…

My wife?  huh?  Really?  You mean you don’t have an assignment for me.. like right now?  C’mon, Bill you’ve always come through for me in the past…

Speaking of assignments, I wonder whether Mark is actually on the payroll of Woods and Wildlife Magazine or if he is a “contractor…”  Considering he ONLY writes for W&W, that Bill Ellis gives him work direction, reimburses all expenses, he had better be, otherwise Ol’ W&W or its parent company could be in a lot of deep water and have some withholding tax to pay…  like 60 years’ worth!

Yes, back at the palatial offices of Woods and Wildlife Magazine… Bill must have a Board Meeting or something- look at how dressed up he is today!  Saks, Burberry or Brooks Brothers for sure…

And note how stoic the pigeon is as all the raptors are closing in!

Sorry to have skipped yesterday’s installment, campers, but I was away and couldn’t get to a computer…  anyway, the banter in these two segments is first rate…  and we can see that Mark is having fun with this…  rather than being his literal self (a volcano erupted) Mark offers up the line, “the island exploded!” Which Bill then hits out of the park with the “…you’ve blown up an island now, Mark!?” response.  Very clever.  And it would seem that Bill is still interested in what Mark has to say, and write even.

But Bill, lets be clear… when would Mark have had time to “put a story together?”  Good or otherwise?  It’s been all of 36 hours or so since you told him he couldn’t rent a boat and put it on his expense account…  And for that matter, when have we ever seen mark hunched over an Underwood No. 5 or laptop and writing anything?  I think it’s all a sham- Mark is the brand while minions crank out the words…

Oh, Honey… I mean Cherry, you don’t understand, do you?  These are Mark’s readers… Mark’s public.  Why, he can barely go anywhere without someone saying, “Oh!  You’re that Mark Trail?  I loved your piece on the Blind Toads of Calcutta…”  Not to be confused with the Blind Boys of Alabama…

And I am quite impressed with Mark’s new-found range of non-verbal expression… No longer the Sphinx…  bound by one or two facial tics…  but a full range of irony and, dare I say… timing.  Oh, OK, being a bit generous there, but I’m just trying to give the author half-a-hand’s worth of encouragement…  Cherry seems to be enjoying herself, anyway…

As Mark remains delusional regarding his place in the universe and the missions that he is called upon to perform, Cherry needs to seriously reevaluate her life and the commitments she has made.  Sure… Mark invited her to join him on a Hawaiian get-away, but ever since they arrived, mark has done his level best to avoid her…  and now feels compelled to call Bill Ellis to inform him that the much anticipated story on the Red Imported Fire Ant crisis in Hawaii will have to be taken down from his whiteboard- in favor of a retelling of the volcano “adventure?”

Or judging by the look on Mark’s face, he is going for humor…  a little levity to help lighten the mood…

But really, what’s with the building in panel one… we have been seeing this for a few days now.  Is this meant to be a replica of the actual Coco Palms resort?  It looks very mid-century…

I guess it is, but not a very good one…  and it would appear that there was a fire that took out the iconic arch and conch shell replica… this fire happened in 2014, and before that it was a hurricane… the resort is scheduled to be re-opened in 2017…  Could it be that Mark & Cherry are in some kind of a twilight zone adventure- moving back in Space-time to the hay-day of Elvis and Blue Hawaii??  Or is Mark so cheap he will only take Cherry to an abandoned resort?

Blue and Red hair, that is…  Mark, the eco-liberal and Cherry, the keeper of all values traditional can find true love!  Maybe a metaphor for the coming age!  Lord knows we need a sign… any sign!

I will say again, though… they have been apart for less than a day?  Phone call, Mark begs for boat rental (actually to have someone else pay for the boat rental,) gets denied, drives out to the chopper pad, gets ditched by Cherry, choppers out to atoll with Cal, meets up with Abbey, climbs and stumbles around, gets chased by boar and lava, jumps off cliff, gets rescued by Cal in Abbey’s boat, chopper having been destroyed, outruns the final explosions and tsunami, and returns to the resort… Honey, I’m home!  Yup, 4 or 5 hours, max.  So the Trail-time equivalent of one hour to one month continues to hold up! Which means we will be in Hawaii another 8 years!

…that we all want to ask.  The steady diet of natural disasters and villain inspired dangers has proven tedious at least and incredible to boot.  No one, simply based on odds, would walk into these situations time after time after time…

So as Mark stands there mute and gob-smacked by Cherry’s intelligent question, we are all left at ask the very same thing.  On the other hand, what choice do we have?  There simply isn’t any interest in watching Mark and Cherry live their dull lives, Mark at the keyboard and Cherry doing what-all… Time for Rusty to get kidnapped again…  that hasn’t happened for a while!  There are rare times that I feel for Mr. Allen, having to keep this boat floating and heading in a direction, when it’s clear that the rudder has been disabled, the keel pulled, and the sails furled…  But as has been suggested by this forum, there are people out there who make a living writing story lines… let’s invest in one, oh mighty syndicate.

…or wanted…

As the camera does a complete 360 degree pan we go from Mark’s starboard to port side, catching his Brylcreemed coiffure, Pepsodent smile and kind, steely eyes…  Now if he could only remember his wife’s name!

So that’s it, Abbey!  Friend or not, you are on your own… never mind that you aren’t staying at the Coco Palms, or even if you aren’t staying on the same island!  Good luck getting back to your conference!  That’s OK… you’re a big girl and you’ll figure it out…

…all in a day’s work…

…as Abbey transmogrifies back into a woman- curves, eyelashes and all…

But oh no… there will be no smooching.  And that assumes that Abbey is even interested…  So as the tension dissipates, we are left to ponder the greater mysteries of the Trailverse, chief among which is… What the hell day is it, anyway?  Has the sun even set?  I don’t think it has.  At least now we know how Mark stays perpetually 32 years old.  The earth doesn’t rotate as quickly for him as it does for us- to wit- I was at the dry cleaners yesterday and received a senior discount… ugh!  Talk about your good news/bad news scenarios…