Austin Aslan - The Islands at the End of the World

I perk up, but Dad frowns. “And what’s your plan?”

“I’m booked on a flight to Kaua`i later this evening. I’ve been here for two days.”

Dad gives me a grave look. “I don’t like it, but he may be right. Maybe we should head over the mountain to Kāne`ohe.” The guy who was ahead of us in line overhears and moves closer. “No, no. Bad idea. I just escaped from there.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re not flying a damn soul anywhere. I’ve been trying to get to Maui since Tuesday morning. I left Honolulu International on the first army bus Wednesday night. And I waited, and waited. Meanwhile droves of tourists are filling up their gyms and soccer fields. If you think this place is a zoo …”

“They’re … they’re just shuffling people around?”

“It’s like a refugee camp over there. I wasn’t supposed to leave. No one is. I escaped.”

“What?” Dad says incredulously.

“If they’re trying to help, why are they limiting private copter travel?” the escapee asks. “Every day the Orchid hangs there, taunting us, the panic multiplies by ten. We all know this island’s in deep trouble. They’re just collecting homeless people to keep us from going apeshit. They didn’t even evacuate for the tsunami. The military’s interests are not ours. They couldn’t give a rat’s ass how long it takes you and your daughter to get to Hilo. The gas has stopped arriving, you know. What, you think they’re going to expend all the fuel that’s left to schlep around civilian families?”

Dad hangs his head, studying his shoes.

“I don’t know. Maybe transport flights will start. But I was there. If you want to be back home in a couple days, or weeks—not months—I suggest you stay the hell away from the military.”

Weeks? Months? I ball my hands into fists around the duffel bags I’m carrying.

“Well, dammit, what else are we supposed to do?” Dad says.

The man shrugs. “You could always try one of the ferry companies.”

The Kaua`i-bound listener guffaws. Dad slouches. We’re all in on the bad joke: it’s been years since ferry companies ran between the islands. Environmental lawsuits and bad politics shut them down. And the water’s too rough.

The jokester pats Dad on the shoulder. “Hey, I’ve helped you all I can. That watch will have to get me and my wife out of here. Best damned investment I ever made. We may still be in the same boat as you, if the army siphons off private fuel. Same boat. Ha ha. Ain’t that the truth!” The man drifts away.

We stand and stare at the floor. There’s a lump in my throat threatening to burst free. I choke it down.

Home. I just want to be home .

“Come on, Lei.” Dad elbows me. “This isn’t going to work.”

We return to the car with all of our belongings. Our rental’s almost boxed in to its parking spot. Dad jumps into the driver’s seat. “You okay?” he asks, wiping sweat off his brow.

“I’m fine. You?”

Dad turns on the car and cranks up the AC. He bounces in his seat for a second and then pounds the steering wheel. “Dammit!” he shouts. “Son of a bitch!” He wipes his forehead and leans close to the air vent.

I don’t say anything. He shifts the car into drive and bangs out a ten-point exit. We leave the airport.

He turns the AC off and rolls down the windows. “ Everyone wants to be voted off the island.”

“I’m really sorry,” I croak.

“No. Stop. That’s not what I meant. Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty, right? We would have been acting crazy if we had upped and fled a couple days ago. We may be crazy now. All of this may still end at any moment.”

And what? I think. We all just wake up and look around at each other and scratch our heads? We just agree to forget this ever happened? I wasn’t really robbing a grocery store at gunpoint. Can I have my Rolex back?

We drive in silence. On our way back into Honolulu, we pass by Pearl Harbor again. A battleship and an aircraft carrier creep toward the bay from the open ocean.

“Maybe they know what’s really happening,” I say. “They’re in contact with the mainland, and they’re just not telling anyone.”

“I can guarantee you that they have a good idea what’s going to happen.”

“I wonder if that carrier is coming from the mainland.”

“A little soon for that, maybe. They’re probably returning to port from somewhere here in the Pacific.” Dad is silent for a while, but then he says, “I doubt they know what’s happened. It’s been five days. The panic is coming fast. If the government knew what this Emerald Orchid was about, they would have announced when things would be returning to normal, to keep everyone calm. If they knew things weren’t going to get better, they would have declared martial law by now.”

“What’s that?”

“When the military says, ‘We’re in charge now, folks! Fall in line! What’s that you say? You have rights ? No, you don’t!’ ”

“Sounds like they’re already doing things their own way,” I point out.

“Ten percent of this island is armed forces. That guy who told us to stay away from there is totally right. He was an angel come from heaven. We just avoided a colossal mistake.”

My guess is that while all of these terrible scenarios could happen, the military is filled with normal people, in the end. People like Grandpa. They’re Americans , after all. They’re not going to be monsters.

Right?

We turn back into Waikīkī shaken. Silent. We’re going to see if anyone will take us to the Big Island on a yacht or sailboat.

It’s either that or take up paddling.

The Pacific Ocean builds so much force between Alaska and here. All that power grows and grows, pushed by strong winds, pulled by the moon, fed by currents, and then it hits these islands in the middle of nowhere. The only place that energy has to flow is between the islands. You don’t mess with that power unless you know what you’re doing.

Really strong athletes sometimes row from Moloka`i to O`ahu—Grandpa did it once, long before I was born. But the current’s in their favor. No one rows in the direction we need to go. Dad once said we’d need tons of training before attempting something like that.

We approach a park swarming with pedestrians, cyclists, and clogged traffic, prophets with placards commanding Repent , and large prayer circles. Police and National Guardsmen patrol. Makeshift canvas tents have been set up in every direction, offering medical care, palm readings, cash for gold, emergency kits, political flyers, dried ahi, poi. Three separate guys are selling toilet paper for five bucks a roll, and people are buying. One guy is even selling silk-screened T-shirts of the Emerald Orchid. Someone who was trying to sell guns out of the back of his truck has been pinned to the ground by guardsmen. He screams about his Second Amendment rights. The strumming of ukuleles and the sound of singing float from beneath several shady banyan trees.

A grizzly old man wearing a placard covered with scribbled biblical passages catches my gaze and shouts as he reads from the last pages of his Bible.

“ ‘When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a horse whose color was pale green! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind.’ ”

He drops the Bible to his side and holds a cross. “Repent, you forsaken! You sinners! It all comes to pass! The horsemen ride. Conquest, civil war, famine, death! The pale green horse rears up to trample you!”