Where Is Everyone?

Nothing seemed all that out of the ordinary on the island that day. The sun shone brightly overhead, the sky was a gorgeous blue. Birds squawked and monkeys screeched in the trees the way they always did. Everything gave the appearance that the day in question was nothing more than – well, a normal and everyday day like all the others before it.

Gilligan was returning from a trek into the jungle, where he had been gathering berries the Professor intended to use in some ingenious experiment. Gilligan had to admit he had no idea how the experiment worked, what its goal was, or why berries were needed. (The Professor had explained, but his explanation utilized so many enormous words that he may as well have been speaking in ancient Marubi.) Nevertheless, his confidence in the intelligence of his comrade made Gilligan sure that the experiment was ingenious. He was proud to do his part.

Upon returning to camp, Gilligan had no clue that strange and curious things would soon be baffling him. The Howells were lounging outside their hut and the Skipper stood before him in his usual blue shirt, asking anxiously, "Have you got the berries, Gilligan?"

"Yeah, Skipper," replied Gilligan cheerfully, and he made his way to the Professor's hut.

That was when everything started to become… odd.

Standing in the Professor's hut was a man who was certainly not the Professor, although he was poring over one of the Professor's books when Gilligan came in.

"Gilligan, you've got the berries. Good for you!" exclaimed the strange man, his boyish face beaming. "I'll use them in a few minutes."

"Pro-professor?" Gilligan stammered, having no idea what was going on.

"Gilligan, is something wrong?" demanded the man, looking at him quizzically. Gilligan's mind however, was understandably elsewhere, considering the situation he found himself in.

"Oh, boy," Gilligan spluttered rapidly. "Oh, boy, oh, boy!" The poor young man did not stop for breath. His heart and mind were racing. "It's– You're an imposter, aren't you? Like the Imposter Mr. Howell, or Eva Grubb, or that guy who pretended to be me and… Except with them, they actually looked like the people they were imposterizing and you– I'm sorry, but you don't look a thing like the Professor at all! Unless…" A terrible thought hit Gilligan as his eyes fell on a coconut test tube half filled with purple liquid. "Unless one of your experiments went wrong and now it's totally changed your appearance. Oh, you should never drink something from an experiment, Professor, isn't that what you always tell me? Something awful could happen! You could end up like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! Oh, jeez! Don't worry, Professor, we'll help you! HEY, EVERYBODY!"

Gilligan did not need to holler. By this point, his commotion in the Professor's hut had gathered everyone around him.

"Dear boy, whatever is the matter?" inquired Mr. Howell. "I do hope it is important. I was beginning to doze off in my chair and have this simply wonderful dream. I had the Midas touch, you see, but without all those pesky little handicaps which turned food and human flesh into gold along with everything else."

"Look!" cried Gilligan, pointing at the stranger on whom his eyes were still transfixed.

To Gilligan's surprise, there was no general expression of consternation at the sight of this man. Not so much as a peep.

"Well, Gilligan?" said the Skipper. "All I see is the Professor."

"The Professor?! Skipper, c'mon! The Professor's never looked like that!"

"Gilligan," demanded the Skipper, looking astounded and more than a little worried for his little buddy's health, "what do you mean? The Professor has looked like this since we first got marooned on the island – since he first got on board the Minnow in Hawaii!"

By now, Gilligan was getting incredibly frustrated. Didn't anyone remember what the Professor looked like, what he had looked like just that morning and all other times before? He turned around to face the girls who he thought were standing behind him, hoping to get a kind word from Mary Ann.

Mary Ann was not there, however. For that matter, neither was Ginger. In their place stood a curvaceous blonde and a redhead whose hard countenance suggested she had a tough and sassy disposition.

"The kid's finally cracked!" pronounced the redhead with finality. "I mean, he was loopy before but now he's gone loopier!"

"Ginger, please–" murmured the blonde, frowning.

"Ginger?" asked Gilligan, bewildered.

The redhead folded her arms and sighed. "What, you don't recognize me now? Oh, please!"

"Ginger Grant? The movie star?" Gilligan proceeded. At this the redhead let out a harsh laugh.

"Movie star, huh!" she spat with contempt. "If only! No! Ginger the secretary! You know, the one who's been living beside you day in and day out for the past three years!" Then she began to talk very slowly and emphatically, as one might do when addressing a very young child. "Behind you, that's the Professor. Next to him is the Skipper. Over there are Mr. and Mrs. Thurston Howell III. And this," she finished, gesturing to the woman beside her, "is Bunny. Sorry to break it to you, but she's not a movie star either – just a secretary like me."

"Bunny?!" Gilligan echoed shrilly, incredulous. Oh, if bizarre and outrageous things had to happen, why did they have to happen all at once?

"You remember me, don't you, Gilligan?" asked Bunny in her sweetest voice. And she got nearer to him and made an attempt to kiss the tip of Gilligan's nose as Ginger – the real Ginger – might have done. Gilligan was too dumbstruck to back away and knock himself unconscious on whatever was handy.

This was all so confusing. So the Ginger-Who-Was-Not-Ginger was nothing like Ginger and Ginger – that is to say, the real Ginger – was more like this… Bunny, who happened to be nothing like Mary Ann. Gilligan could not wrap his head around it. At least the Professor's personality was pretty much the same, even if his face was different.

"Gilligan," asked the Professor Who Didn't Look Like But Still Could Maybe Be The Professor uncertainly, "you didn't eat any of those berries, did you?"

"Dear me, I hope those berries didn't do something nasty to affect his mind," exclaimed Mrs. Howell. "That would be absolutely dreadful for the poor boy. Oh, you poor thing!" Mrs. Howell maternally pressed one gloved hand to Gilligan's forehead, using her other hand to raise her lorgnette to her eyes and look him over. "He does look a bit peaky, doesn't he?"

If Gilligan looked at all peaky, if the color was draining from his face, it was because he found himself in an inexplicable and unexplainable predicament, and now his fellow castaways – including people he didn't even know as his fellow castaways – were afraid he might be losing his mind. It was all too much. He wanted everything as it had been, should have been. He wanted the Professor back to his old self. He wanted Ginger to be the Ginger he knew, the woman who despite her glamour and movie star status would still treat him with dignity and compassion. Most of all he wished that Mary Ann was there to squeeze his hand and give him encouragement, to assure him that everything would be alright.

But Mary Ann was not there, and Gilligan was far from assured that everything was going to be alright. "I didn't eat any of the berries," he protested, realizing his voice was growing faint. "And I'm not going crazy." He felt his head swimming, barely able to take in these recent events. "I'm not… I didn't eat the… I'm not…"

He felt himself slump forward, consciousness slipping away, as the other castaways crowded closer to him, urgently shouting, "Gilligan! Gilligan!"

"Gilligan!"

Gilligan woke with a start. He was crumpled at the foot of a palm tree. By his side was a half-empty basket of berries. It was well after nightfall, and he could hear the distant cries of his friends and fellow castaways as they called out his name.

"I'm over here!" he yelled to them, and it wasn't long before someone emerged from the darkness bearing a torch, someone he was very happy to see once again – Mary Ann.

"Gilligan? Gilligan, is that you?"

"Is that you?" Gilligan responded. He blinked several times to make sure the vision before him was a reality. It was. "Oh, Mary Ann, am I ever glad to see you!"

Suddenly Mary Ann cried out, "Gilligan, you're bleeding!"

Gilligan's eyes widened in shock. "I am?" He raised a hand to his face, and then surveyed the crimson fluid on his fingers. "That's not blood, Mary Ann! It's berry juice."

Both laughed in relief, but as Mary Ann got closer Gilligan could see in the torchlight that her soft brown eyes were glistening with tears.

"Oh, Gilligan!" she murmured. "We were so worried about you. When you didn't return after the Professor sent you out for the berries, we got scared that something terrible had happened to you. We've been searching for hours and– Oh, Gilligan!"

She helped him up and embraced him tightly. Then she called out to the others, "He's over here! He's safe! I've found him!"

There was a thunder of trampling feet. Little by little, the whole group assembled. Gilligan was pleased to see the Professor – the Professor he knew – and the one and only Ginger Grant of Hollywood among them.

The Professor grimly surveyed the scene, focusing primarily on the half-empty berry basket and the juice smearing Gilligan's face. It seemed to confirm his suspicions. "Gilligan," he said wearily, "didn't I warn you not to eat any of those berries? They have a special quality which makes anyone who eats them incredibly drowsy. You were lucky that we managed to find you. Imagine what would have happened if you fell asleep in a more tucked-away spot on the island. The consequences could have been disastrous!"

"I'm sorry to have put you guys through all this trouble."

"It's no trouble, little buddy," the Skipper assured him warmly. "You're safe. That's what matters."

Rejoicing, the whole company returned to the huts. As they did so, Gilligan related the particulars of his peculiar dream. It held no terror for him now, now that he was surrounded by smiling faces he knew, and it proved an amusing anecdote. Ginger's reaction to the fact that Gilligan's subconscious mind had somehow transformed her into a cranky secretary was… everything one might expect. And Mary Ann's reaction upon hearing about her so-called counterpart? She seemed to think it was the funniest thing in the world. But it was the name that stood out the most to her, and gave her the greatest amount of incredulity.

"Bunny?" she snorted. "Oh, honestly! What kind of a name is that?"

A/N: So… this story stemmed from the idea: What if Gilligan met up with the cast from the original pilot? You know. The one where it was a six hour trip instead of a three hour tour. The one with the mad, bad calypso music theme song. The one where Ginger was a secretary and Mary Ann didn't exist and the Professor is That-Guy-Who-Is-Not-Russell-Johnson. That one. You know. Hurrah for recasts and reimaginings of characters! (:

It is a bizarre premise, and I'm not quite sure how it turned out. I hope it's not too bad. Whether it is or not, please read and review and tell me what you think!