The Islands at the End of the World (25 page)

“Dad. That was all before. Everything’s changed.”

We sit down and watch in silence as the distant battleships grow smaller.

As I see all that power and might drift away on the open
sea, I’m reminded, absurdly, of how I felt the first time my parents left me alone to babysit Kai. I watched their car pull out of the driveway feeling scared and excited. I was on my own.

There’s no excitement now. The United States has ditched us. The barbarians who hunted us yesterday might cheer. But what if an enemy shows up on these shores?

“We’re no longer part of America,” I whisper.

Dad’s eyes widen.

I cough. Tiny droplets of blood spatter my fist. I wipe the evidence away. “Where are they going? San Diego? What are they going to find?”

“Klingons.”

“I’m serious, Dad.”

“We may never know.” Dad scratches his beard. “We may never find out what the hell has happened to the world. Who’s going to flee
to
Hawai`i?”

I shrug. “The Chinese?”

Dad soaks up my comment for a moment. “Can you imagine?”

“Hysteresis,” I say.

Dad gives me an approving wink. “You’re right.”

Hysteresis is another ecology word I’ve heard at home. It describes when things are harder to fix than they were to break in the first place. Like a rubber band: they stretch a lot, but when you pull too hard, they snap, and there’s no going back to the way it used to be.

No doubt now: Hawai`i has snapped.

* * *

We can only march forward. Dad and I press on.

We break through the trees as dusk begins to fall and find ourselves standing along the edge of a one-acre clearing planted with
pakalōlō
. Rows upon rows of marijuana plants. Dad tosses his bag to the ground, falls to his knees, and declares, “We are done for the day.”

“We can’t stop here! This belongs to someone. What if they come along and find us?”

“Then we’ll all get baked together.” He grins. He’s serious. “Lei, we have to stop. I can’t keep going. We have to clean out your dog bite. We both need medical attention. I can’t think of a finer apothecary on all the islands.”

“Medical attention?”

This is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. I’ve never smoked pot, though plenty of kids at school regularly do. I don’t have an opinion about it, but this strikes me as insane.

“We all have our limits, Lei. I was going to stop anyway. This just makes it all the more worthwhile. Why don’t you pitch our tent somewhere nearby? I’ll be over to help in a few.”

“You can’t smoke freshly picked
pakalōlō
. Even I know that.”

“It’s the end of the world, Lei. And we’re both exhausted and in pain and homesick and hunted and hungry and chafing and swarmed by mosquitoes and thirsty and infected and angry and half-crazed. We’re in the middle of the jungle. The big boys just jumped ship. Savages carry the badge now. Body snatchers control the president. We can do whatever we want.”

I wander away and set up camp. I know when I’m beat. Truth be told, I was ready to ask that we do stop. If Dad wants to get a bad high off damp weed, what do I care?

Later in the evening we’re crouched low in our small tent. The stars shimmer through a dusty atmosphere and the persistent glow of the Emerald Orchid. I’ve just cleaned my dog bite again with alcohol wipes when Dad presents me with a bong made out of an emptied tuna can. Dad found plenty of long-dried flower buds and plant tips to fill his invention. “I insist,” he says.

Will wonders ever cease? I hold it up awkwardly. “What about my epilepsy?”

“Is this really your first time?”

“Are you
lōlō?
I’m a good girl, Dad. And epileptic! My meds worked. I wasn’t going to jeopardize that.”

“Yeah. But pot won’t interfere with your meds. Some people think it actually helps.”

I stare at him.

“I looked into it once. In case, you know, you ever did smoke.”

“Are you trying to talk me in to being a pothead?”

Dad laughs. “No. Forget I said that.”

He shows me what to do, and I do it. I finally get the hang of plugging and releasing the choke as I draw in my breath. For a long time I feel nothing but the urge to cough. Then it hits me. My aches and pains and fears are soon forgotten, and I’m riding an emerald wave of another sort through the stars.

“Maybe this would help my social life.”

Dad doesn’t say anything. He probably doesn’t know how to respond. “Awkward!” I sing, and then I laugh.

“I knew you were having a tough time. I never knew it was that tough.”

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault. You asked, and I always lied. Aside from Tami … Hilo’s impossible. People aren’t mean; they’re just too tight already to bother putting in the effort. It’s hard to fit in with light skin. And fits …” I add with a giggle. “It’s too hard to fit in with fits.”

“I’m glad you didn’t have any issues with that yesterday,” Dad says. “I was worried.”

“Yeah, can you imagine?” I try to picture losing it like a washing machine, in that cramped alcove with the dead dog, while bad guys searched for us. I grow panicky just thinking about it.

“But,” I say, “I can’t wait to get back there. Hilo’s home. And it can’t be harder than here! Or O`ahu!”

“Amen to that.”

“You know what else? Pele taught me something. You can’t just wait around for others to accept you. You have to go out and get it. Defend your turf.”

“Pele taught you that?”

“Yeah. She did.”

“K’den. Amen,” Dad says.

Now I feel the electricity in my brain, stored there like a humming, thrumming power plant. I’m at the center of a ball of lightning, ready to roll down the slope of a giant hill in my fiery zorb. I crackle and I sizzle and I spark. Blue arcs
spit off my fingertips and out through my stitches and my hair is standing on end like I’m the Bride of Frankenstein. I
am
Pele: goddess of fire and volcanoes and lightning and all things that “rock.” I
am
the Emerald Orchid. Leilani. The Flower of Heaven. I sewed the green lightning and cast it over the night sky, and I rest upon the mantle of the Earth, a queen in a fine, green silk gown, looking out upon the destruction that I’ve wrought. But I am greater still than Pele. For I know the day, the hour, the moment of the end. I am the goddess of the cosmos. I come when it suits me. I do as I please. My stormy brain obliterates satellites and circuit boards. I take it all away. Now you’re back to warring and smiting and pillaging.

Smiting
. I laugh.
Hilarious word
.

That
Lord of the Flies
Jackie-Jack sheriff yesterday loved to use his fancy compound bow, yeah? Smiter extraordinaire. I know what it’s like to be hunted, the fear of the prey. But Jackie-Jack doesn’t know what it’s like to hunt me. I’m no Piggy. No stupid boar. I’m just as smart as you are. I hacked a two-headed beast in half with a sword, and I kept my cool. I was tested by fire, and I kept my cool. That’s because I am the goddess of fire, the rainmaker of hellfire, I can hear the gods—even if I have no idea what they’re saying—and I surf the Emerald Orchid.

I take another hit from the tuna can and pass it to Dad. I cough into my fist, then wipe the blood spatter on my shorts. I never want to touch this stuff again—but right now, it seems like a great idea.

“Is the iodide getting to you?” Dad asks me after a few minutes—or hours—of silence.

“Yeah.”

“I wish I knew what to do. Everything we know is second- or thirdhand. I don’t even know if it’s worth it. Man, what’s happening out there?” Dad says. “What’s happening in Greece?”

“Greece?” I giggle.

“Yeah. Greece. What’s happening in France? Kansas? Iran? How are the Mongolians dealing with this? Who’s out there wondering about Hawai`i?”

I crack up. “Aloha, Hawai`i. Howzit? Please send more macadamia nuts.” OMG. Bad joke. But I can’t stop laughing.

Dad heroically rediscovers his train of thought. “Are tourists stuck in Peru ever going to find their way home? How long do you suppose the food lasted in Manhattan?”

“I just care about Mom and Kai. That’s what drives me crazy. I want to know what
they’re
doing.”

Dad leans forward and seems to sober up a bit. “Lei, they’re all right. I promise.”

“It’s been five weeks now, Dad. Thirty-five days.” I wipe tears away before they can pour down my cheeks. “But who’s counting?”

He squeezes my shoulder. “Hey. They’re with Grandpa. They’re better off than we are. The Big Island is now the land of milk and honey. Plenty of food. Wild pigs. Folks could eat coqui frogs. The island has one of the biggest ranches in America. People will adapt. We’ve been eating less … and
surviving. Everyone will be getting by on less. There hasn’t been enough time for
everything
to unravel.”

We’re silent, and my thoughts shift to that pyre smoke we saw behind the Maui airport.
Tell that to the first round of losers
.

“The point is we can handle it,” Dad continues. “And you know Mom. She has those chickens and that garden. And our neighbors. The Millers would take a bullet for her. She’s got a good family name, too. Grandpa’s kahuna. Lots of friends in those parts.”

“They’re probably running the island, for all we know.”

“Ha! Wouldn’t surprise me. See? They’re
fine
. Kai pops eggs each morning, coqui frogs for dinner, and a nice salad for lunch. They probably have luaus every couple of days with the pigs your grandpa hunts.”

I laugh again. “Remember that time Mom went spearfishing with that marine-science guy and stabbed his shoe when she tripped over the lava?”

“She’ll never live that down.”

We cackle with laughter for what might be hours.

I’m feeling better about them. Still, Mom has to be worried about us. We’ve been hunted, attacked, shipwrecked, shot, held prisoner. I’ve leapt from a burning building, and I’m coughing blood and high on pot. She could hardly have feared any worse. I just want her to know that we’re still here, and that we’ll hold each other in our arms soon.

“Hana in the next day or two. We’ll find some way to get across the gap, and we’ll be there, just like that.”

“I really hope you’re right. I can’t take much more of this.”

“Oh, but you can. And you’ll have to. We both will: this is only the beginning, Lei. Hunters and gatherers. Tribal serfdoms. Survival of the fittest. We’re not going to be at the top of the food chain. We don’t have what it takes to be powerful. Mean. It’s groups like that sheriff’s posse that will be in charge. Shoot first, questions never. Fighting for what’s ours is the new norm, hon.”

I can feel panic returning. What happened yesterday was so
wrong
. I can scarcely grasp it.

I clasp on to images of Mom and Kai. “As long as we’re all together.”

“Amen.”

The old life isn’t
all
gone. Our bonds haven’t
completely
disintegrated. The weave is in our DNA, isn’t it? We’ll always start again. “Moloka`i was working. Starting fresh. What if all this technology and braininess got in the way, and now we can finally be back in touch with reality? What if it’s an
opportunity
? If Uncle Akoni’s right, and the Emerald Orchid’s actually absorbing radiation, what if it’s all for the best?”

Dad is silent. “I’ve heard that crisis and opportunity are the same word in Chinese.”

“Hey, yeah.”

“A global catharsis. A do-over. Yeah. Remind me to get stoned with you more of ten.” Dad suddenly belts out in song.
“We’ve got to get our-se-elves back to the Gaaaaarden …!”

Some seventies thing. I laugh.

Dad lies down. “I can’t believe it happened this way. I always thought it would be some Malthusian catastrophe: water wars, soil collapse, disease, swine flu, heat waves, ice ages. You name it. But no. It’s a Georgia O’Keeffe painting. Some … giant … fertility goddess from outer space finally did us all in.”

“Dad!”

“Well, am I wrong? Look at it! Am I wrong?”

I stare at the Emerald Orchid. I may never unsee what he just put in my head. Leave it to a
guy
to get all anatomical. It’s just a cloud. Definitely not a UFO. It’s a glowing cloud of gas or plasma or whatever. Like puffy summer clouds, you can see anything you want to in its shape.

This thing hasn’t changed shape much, though; it’s more rigid than a cloud. More substantial. But it’s different now. Out of focus. There’s something that wasn’t there on the first night I saw it.

“Dad, you see that other thing? Like a separate flower. Inside it, maybe? Behind it? I can’t tell.”

Dad sits up. “Yeah, I do. I saw that a couple of nights ago. It’s moved since then.”

It reminds me of the jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I recall an image of those beautiful orange globules and their neon tentacles, serenely suspended within their aquarium against a dark blue backdrop. The baby jellyfish and the adult jellyfish, all see-through and seemingly tangled, would align behind the glass the way this Emerald Orchid and its …

I gasp.

A whirlwind of memories assails me, each building on the next. Those dark seizurescapes, the snatches of imagery, the voice, the echoes of thought flowing through with my own consciousness like ropy folds of bloodshot pahoehoe flowing over rocky `
a`a
.

I do not want to remember any of my seizures. Or what follows. But I can’t bury what I now see. It’s all coming back, like a furious swarm of hornets rattled from a hive, and the truth stings white-hot:

The Emerald Orchid is no cloud.

“Dad!”

“What?”

“It’s alive. The Orchid’s alive!”