Shipwrecked

He was scrambling over the gnarled roots of the mangroves, fighting the sucking mud and the rising tide for his life.  That is, he was, until a flying Thomas the tank engine struck him above his right brow.  Confused for a moment, the cold gray blue of the oncoming storm had been traded for the bumpy white panels of the basement ceiling.  The shelter he'd sought where the shore rose up above the cold waves was a jungle of electronics and boxes full of papers, precariously stacked in a dim corner of the storage shelves.  The natives of this startling new world were restless.  He narrowly winced out of the path of a ninja turtle's flying kick, and looked for an escape route.  The old springs of the basement sofa hung low, and were scarcely easier to escape than the tide plain in his book.  Hastily grabbing the paperback, he juked and dodged his way past another flying toy.

"How many times do I have to say it?! STOP throwing toys!"

The three year old froze with a sharply angled metal jeep held above his head, ready for launch.  He pouted, but then looked past his father and smiled.

It was too late when he turned around, the leader of the sibling strike force had been waiting behind the edge of the stairwell, and sprung at the unprotected knees. Although only a kindergartener, he had strong legs, and weighed nearly 50 pounds. Daddy went down, the paperback fluttering to the floor like a wounded bird and landing at the feet of the baby.  A mass of giggling limbs was twisting and grappling his lower legs, and he wasn't able to snatch the book away until one corner had been slimed.  The baby wailed, the older brother scolded him for hurting the baby's feeling  and disappeared from his ankles only to land with a thud on his lumbar vertebrae.  He thought wistfully of being shipwrecked and marooned on an island, fighting for his survival but alone in silence.