Register Sunday | July 13 | 2025

The Feast of Gilligan

Castaway Writing Contest winner William Truex of Hackettstown, New Jersey tells of the sinister fate of television's favourite castaways...

Coconuts were gone. Gone. Nothing was left to eat. They all knew it. The Professor worked furiously in order to invent something, anything that would get them out of this jam, but to no success. They had no food. The Howells were the first to go. They tied together several expensive silk scarves, and fashioned a primitive noose. Mrs. Howell went first, and then her husband followed. That was only after three days. After the first week of no solid food, the castaway crew on Gilligan’s Island became desperate. The Professor was rarely seen, and when he made an appearance, it was only to sigh in building frustration. The Skipper, once a boisterous barrel of cheap laughs, had started to become sallow, depressed. Mary Ann and Ginger, once so full of life, bristling with terrible sexual tensions and cool innuendoes, had become withdrawn, tired and hopeless. Mary Ann wept daily. Ginger resorted to pulling out her hair and cutting. All felt the effects but Gilligan. He would slap the Skipper on the back saying, “Ha! New diet workin’ out?” The Skipper regarded him mildly, not having the strength to smack him with his hat. Almost two weeks had passed, and had almost destroyed the castaways. Water may quench, but water cannot feed. Gilligan was still in high spirits, seemingly invincible from the strain of having no food. The Skipper had become suspicious, paranoid. Maybe even delusional. Ginger was the next to go. She simply waded out into the ocean, and without the strength (or will) to fight the undertow, she was simply swept away into the blue abyss. Only four remained, steadfast and vigilant. The Professor didn’t have the strength to invent anymore, and simply collapsed. Hearing him fall, the Skipper and Mary Ann ambled into his workshop to see what was wrong. They saw him, huddled in a fetal position, weeping. They knew he had broken, and they knew the end was near. They huddled around their friend, and they all wept together. The Skipper looked up at a noise coming from just outside the workshop. He saw Gilligan looking back and forth, checking if the coast was clear. He watched as his lil’ Buddy slinked off behind a boulder and watched, confused, as great plumes of sand flew up from behind the rock. Gilligan produced four coconuts, husked and ready. Gilligan cracked one, and began to eat. Adrenaline exploded through the Skipper, and he crashed through the workshop’s meager walls. Gilligan tried to run, but the Skipper smashed his head into a nearby rock. Mary Ann and the Professor watched in terror as the Skipper began to eat Gilligan. When he began to chew on Gilligan’s fingers, he looked up at them with a deeply insane grin and stopped what he was doing. The Skipper started to laugh, and began to stand up. Mary Ann crushed her face into the Professor’s chest. The Professor’s last thought was three hour tour… and then the Skipper was upon him.