Austin Aslan - The Islands at the End of the World

He shakes his head. “No.”

I rub my temples with my elbows propped on the table.

“Everything cool, hon?”

“Yeah. I’m just … I’ve been cooped up for too long.”

“I know, hon. Maybe we can catch a giant wave all the way back to Hilo.”

“Dad, what if they’re right? What if things never get better?”

Dad lowers his nacho. He looks away, toward the sailboats gathered on the bay. His neck muscles are tight as harp strings.

I belong here, and I am well. It is almost ready to come out .

I freeze. “What’d you say?”

Dad eyes me sternly.

I can feel it coming, but I can’t speak to warn him. He continues as if everything is normal, but my flickering mind garbles his words. “Lei, it’s tay woo early to be tax like that. Those guys are dunk. Don’t let your imag—”

These islands are here for me, and I crave what they will offer. It is a good thing .

Strange trees rustle in a warm evening breeze, their shadows dancing over a mottled, black-and-white beach. Waves lap the shore, cresting gently over shelves of ropy, cooled earth. I tighten the luffing sail and push closer and closer to the land, where sleeping creatures await, oblivious to me, the newcomer, and to the transformation that sweeps behind me, the pigs and dogs and rats and breadfruit that will soon march up the dark slopes and sweep away the old world, leaving something distorted in its place.

I have dreamt of these shores. I was born here, but I slipped away. Now I have reached the shallows, at long last, guided across the endless waters by ancient stars .

A rumble grows beneath the land. I loosen the mainsheet, feeling the weight of the mountain’s unrest. It trembles, vomiting toxic fire. But I will not be held at bay. My destiny is laid out before me. I have fled a troubled shore countless stretches away, restless, in search of adventure. Outcast, forced to flee. Famished and ill, in need of a new land to bleed.

I am Leilani. Spellbound, I blossom .

I’m dizzy. I don’t know where I am.

Someone’s talking to me. Who is he? What’s happening?

Dad. I focus now. Hotel room. A seizure. Just relax, let it all come back .

I close my eyes.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“It’s Friday night, hon. Happy May Day.”

“ Friday ?” Over twenty-four hours. A new record. “Did those test meds backfire?”

“What hasn’t, these days? Lei, here. You’ve missed a day.” He hands me a pill and a glass of water. “Great.”

“I tried to get you to take them. Sorry. Almost drowned you.”

“What’s wrong with me? Weren’t you worried?”

“Yes! You had a big one. Two, actually, I think. But your breathing and pulse were fine. What could I do?”

“Yeah.” I can hear generators humming in the near distance.

“You feel better now?”

“Weird dreams. I never dream during seizures. Remind me not to sign up to be a lab rat again. I’m … What’s going on?” I swallow my medicine and wade through the fog in my mind. We’re still in a hotel room. My head hurts, and I feel nauseated. “Is everything better?”

“Out there? No.”

“We’re supposed to fly home tomorrow.”

“No flights. More stuff’s on the fritz now. Whatever’s happening is getting worse. People are wising up, too. We’ve officially missed the early-bird special.”

My seizures have ruined Dad’s plans. “I’m sorry.”

“No. Don’t be. We’ll figure it out. In the morning. Let’s try to sleep some more. You may feel pretty rested at this point, but tomorrow we need to pick up where we left off.”

“I love you, Dad.”

He hugs me. “We’ll get through it, okay? Tomorrow we head home.”

“Yeah, okay.”

One way or another, we’re going back to our family.

I awake in the morning with a clear mind and no nausea. Hungry. I rummage through Dad’s cache of goodies and scarf down an apple and some granola bars. Even though I’ve safely eaten this same brand for ages, I check the labels for aspartame. Dad moves quickly to pack, so I pick up my pace.

Dad snatches the Honolulu Star-Advertiser from the door while I brush my teeth and pack. Dad laughs as he holds the paper. It’s only four pages long, like my high school newspaper.

A full-page photo displays giant tongues of flame leaping from the ruins of a military helicopter crashed into the side of UH Manoa’s Aloha Stadium, just a couple miles from here. There are photos of gridlocked traffic, crowds at the airport, and congested gasoline-distribution plants with no gas to distribute. The articles report that there is no communication with the outside world. The National Guard and coast guard have been deployed throughout the islands. Residents have been told to remain at home to alleviate traffic and conserve resources. Oil tankers, a crippled cruise ship, and other cargo ships have trickled in, but harbors are clogging as fewer and fewer ships leave port. Tourists have swarmed the ports looking for passage; there are far too few seaworthy vessels to accommodate them all. Only a few sentences about the cruise ship that capsized near Kaua`i. Six hundred passengers. Number of survivors unknown. People in Līhu`e watched it slowly sink a mile offshore in the hours after the tsunami. The sea was too wild to attempt a rescue.

It leaves me short of breath and speechless. But the worst part: there’s nothing in the paper about the Big Island.

“Look at this.” Dad reads:

WAIKĪKĪ—Amid concerns about sanitation, food shortages, power supplies, and housing, a plan to relocate tourists is in the works.

The draft plan would send some tourists to Marine Corps Base Hawai`i at Kāne`ohe Bay and could eventually put them on navy ships headed for the West Coast.

“The airport and many of O`ahu’s hotels and resorts simply won’t have the capacity to safely house guests for much longer,” said army spokesperson Stephen Tybert. “The hard fact is that everyone’s going to be asked to make sacrifices if this continues.”

Waikīkī may also have to be closed if the situation progresses, officials said. Already police and military have been sent to protect O`ahu’s tourism infrastructure in the event that nonresidents are relocated.

“Hello!” Dad says. “Let’s set up concentration camps for fifty thousand fat rednecks in Hawaiian shirts. Welcome to paradise! That’ll boost morale around here.”

“Makes sense to me,” I say. “The natives are growing restless. That article is about making locals happy.”

Dad pauses. “You’re right,” he says. “The governor is still thinking about votes. Screw the tourists.”

I can feel myself glowing at Dad’s praise as I put on my last clean shirt, my favorite cami, and white cargo shorts, looped with a campy belt that I should have stopped loving when I was twelve.

We put on our packs and share the duffels and tote bags. We file into the lobby, right into an agitated crowd. People are pacing back and forth, looking at the ground or shaking their heads, digging ruts into the filthy marble tiles. Some weep. Others are shoving each other near one of the crowded wall outlets, holding phone chargers in clenched fists.

A door bursts open and a flock of hotel employees stampedes into the lobby.

Guests surround them in an angry mob. Shouting fills the air. The employees march toward the main doors. Dad pulls me inside the circle of his arm. A fistfight breaks out near the grand piano. Guests kick at the bolted double doors of the restaurant, pour behind the reception counter. A vase is swept to the floor and shatters.