Fortunately, the island is populated with edible plants.
He lay there, dripping with seawater and coated in sand, for minutes before getting up. The tense descent and violent landing had been over faster than his frenzied muscles could accept, and only with great reservation did his heartbeat slow its pace and his limbs relax under the heat of the afternoon sun. Convinced that the greatest danger had passed, his body permitted him to rise and walk a few paces inland.
The island jutted up from the ocean, a tiny mountain blanketed in trees and shrubs. The shoreline curved inward quickly in either direction, interrupted by the occasional rocky outcropping. The waxy leaves of palm trees and ferns rustled in the breeze, and a the waves batted idly at the beach.
He felt, for the most part, intact. His knees and elbows still bent the right way, he couldn’t find any broken bones, and his insides were still inside him. He had a sore spot on his head from his landing on the plane’s ceiling, and he had a few cuts here and there he didn’t remember from before the crash. He figured he could probably inspect himself better if he took off his sand-crusted clothes, but for now he just wrenched off his sopping shoes and laid his socks to dry out next to them.
He walked a ways up and down the beach, staying close to the greenery of the island’s interior but not yet willing to walk through it in his bare feet. He took note of several coconut palms; he wasn’t sure he had a way to reach the bunches–was that the word, “bunches?” Maybe “clutches?”–or even to break them open if he did, but he was sure he’d be glad they were there if help didn’t arrive soon. He spotted some pinkish-white golf ball-sized fruits growing on one variety of tree of orange-yellow blossoms. He plucked a couple of these, pocketed them, and did the same with some green almond-shaped pods he found on the lower branches of a towering tree. He also found a shrub dotted with dark red berries. He couldn’t decide if red was a good color for edible berries or a poisonous one, but he picked a few of these, too.
He turned back when he was just about to lose sight of his shoes. He reminded himself that there was no real importance to this spot other than that it happened to be where he came ashore, but decided to settle here for the moment, anyhow. He decided that he might want to keep track of the shoreline closest to his plane’s wreck, submerged though it was. After all, it wasn’t technically his plane, and he might need to explain where he left it someday.
He sat beside his soggy shoes and pulled his harvest out from his pockets. Whether or not any of his finds were toxic, he guessed that none of them were toxic enough that he couldn’t stomach one bite. He might be here a long time, and he wanted to find a food source sooner than later.
He started with the golf-ball fruits, really shaped more like jellybeans on closer inspection. He bit into it and was surprised when his teeth clamped down on a tough seed. The skin wasn’t very palatable but hid a surprisingly sweet flesh the color and consistency of snot. He plucked out the seed with two sandy fingers and squeezed the rest of the meat into his eager mouth. He swallowed and waited patiently for any ill signs. He wasn’t sure what being poisoned felt like, but this fruit was so far pleasant, and poisons weren’t pleasant, right?
He moved on to the green almond-shaped pods. They were hard, and pondering them now he suspected he’d taken something unripe. He bit this one carefully, peeling back the thin skin to discover a nut that looked like tiny, purple, elongated football. It was soft enough to chew, and oddly milky in taste. Its texture wasn’t dissimilar from a macadamia nut. He wondered if he’d eaten this before in one of those cans of mixed nuts he bought at the supermarket.
The red berries resembled cranberries, both in color and taste. He wouldn’t mind eating a lot of these, though he suspected he couldn’t survive on them very long. He ate all the ones he’d picked.