Austin Aslan - The Islands at the End of the World

“Can you swim?” he asks me.

I nod. He looks me up and down. His good eye pauses on my chest. I fold my arms and look down.

“I could swing close enough for you jump off. You could take your chances on reaching shore.”

“That’s fine,” Dad answers. “I’m sure we could make that work.”

“Wha’ do I get for it? For the trouble?” He studies me. He turns briefly toward his friend at the tiller, and then his eye is right back on me.

There’s a long pause.

Dad says, “I can write you a check. I can promise to send you—”

“No,” Rocky says, eye on me. I take a step closer to Dad. “No checks. I’m not interested in Monopoly money.”

I think of Mom and Kai, and my gut turns. We can’t afford to let this opportunity fall apart. I squeeze Dad’s upper arm and say, “I … I have a really nice laptop computer.” My voice betrays my nerves. “We also have … top-notch climbing gear. You can keep our bags, too. They’re good backpacking bags.”

“You have climbing gear,” Rocky says to me. “You want to give me your computer. That’s somethin’, innit, Nelson?”

The other guy nods. He’s whittling a stick with a large knife. He watches me, too, but looks away each time I meet his gaze.

“Does the gear come with lessons? Gonna strap me in?” He puts one foot forward and performs an awkward little grind, and his eye drifts from my chest … lower.

Gross . My skin is crawling. My grip around Dad’s arm tightens, and I shrink back.

Dad steps in front of me. He stares at the ground, and then he raises his chin, looking directly at Rocky. “Forget it. We’ll keep looking.”

“Hey, no. We’re just teasing,” laughs Rocky. “We’re gonna be swinging by there anyway, right? Soon as Don shows up with stuffs, we can go. Leave in the morning.”

“Dad,” I say.

He squeezes my shoulder and I know he wants me to stay quiet.

“No, thanks, Rocky.” We turn and walk away.

“Then stay here an’ rot!” he calls over to us. “No one else is gonna help you without a price. We ain’t askin’ much!”

He didn’t just say that. Kill me now .

Dad and I pick up our pace. We arrive at the promenade at the entrance to the marina, and Dad sits down on a bench. He wipes sweat off his brow and his untamed new beard with the base of his T-shirt.

“What a nightmare,” he mutters. “I don’t … I don’t know what to do.” His voice rises.

I can’t stand to see him so helpless. “This almost worked,” I say. “It was a good idea. Come on; we can find other places to check.”

He offers me a forced smile.

“Hey! HEY! NO!” A stocky man with a potbelly and a tight polo shirt thunders down the promenade from the street. He waves a pistol as he shouts. Dad instinctively shields me as the man runs past us. “Stop. STOP THAT! RIGHT NOW!”

A man and a woman jump out of the way as the runner barrels past them, turning onto a narrow dock. At the end of the dock, a young man in a tank top pushes an eighteen-foot sailboat out into the water and leaps on board. Another man yanks frantically at the rip cord of the boat’s outboard motor. The boat turns slowly away from the dock.

The man with the gun reaches the end of the dock. “GET OFF MY BOAT! NOW!”

The thieves duck low, the motor roars to life, and the boat lurches forward. The man fires his gun four times. The skull of one thief pops on one side, spraying a shower of blood against the boat’s mainsail. The body crumples forward. The boat veers at full throttle and plows into another sailboat.

The gunman lowers his arm and stands still as a statue. The second thief dives into the water and splashes away. Meanwhile, the outboard motor is still on, groaning with effort as it wedges the boat between the neighboring sailboat and dock.

Large clumps of blood-soaked brain matter slide down the white canvas of the sail. I let out a whimper.

“Lei, come on.” Dad tugs on my sleeve.

My whimper slowly rises. My heart is pounding in my chest. I feel short of breath. Dad says something, but the words don’t make any sense. I feel like I’m underwater. It rushes at me this time.

It is a good thing. At last, I am ready. I may begin .

The bright sunlight flickers. “Oh, no. Dad …,” I moan. And then I’m

May the light of the gods dawn on me like the rising sun.… Come to me like the creeping of lava, and may this sacred ceremony of the ali`i bring me meditation and release.

“Lie down, honey. You’re fine. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Dad’s left hand is wrapped in a white hotel hand towel that has grown red with bloo

This is right. I am here. It is time. And this one spits fire. It oozes the heat. This one has not warmed before. I will linger, then, as I have done on other shores, and we both shall have our fill .

feeling? Better? Keep resting, Lei.” Dad wipes the sweat off my brow. His left hand is still wrapped in a towel. White. I turn and grope for the sheets. The sun is shining in through a crack in the long drapes. The room feels as stuffy as a sauna, but I’m so cold. So col

I can feel it slipping. This is my privilege. This is my purpose .

I sit up and rub my eyes. It’s dark. Our hotel room. The curtains are pushed aside and the door to the balcony is wide open. A gentle breeze whispers across the hairs of my arms. I can hear sirens, ubiquitous like coqui frogs, strangely reminding me of home. Distant shouts. Pops that I now recognize as gunfire. Dad sits on the lanai and faces the ocean. The moon is nearly full and the sky glows a dark blue with tendrils of green behind almost-white clouds. I see a shooting star race beyond the horizon. There are only half a dozen boats in the bay.

I approach silently. I’m almost outside when Dad notices me. He springs to his feet. “Hi,” he says gently. “You sleep like a teenager.”

“Hi.” I look down.

“How are you doing?” he asks.

“I feel okay. But I’m starving . What time is it?”

“Late. Sunday.”

Another long one. I’m used to being out for twelve hours or so. But a day and a half?

“You’ve had two seizures since the marina. Do you remember the marina?”

The image of that man’s head spraying open, and the blood-smeared sail, will never leave my mind. “Yes. But nothing since then.” Tears well up in my eyes. I brush them aside but they keep coming. I let them.

Dad embraces me. “You’re okay, Lei. It’s all over. You’re fine.”

“How’d we get back here?”

“I carried you. Someone at the marina helped us to the car. I got you up here myself. It was a quarter to noon, so the key card still worked. Haven’t left since.”

“What happened to your hand?” He’s only hugging me with his right arm. I remember seeing blood.

He hesitates to answer. “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. It’s nothing.”

“Did I bite you?” Panic wells up. Did I bite his fingers when he was trying to keep me from choking?

“It’s nothing. Please.”

“HOW BAD IS IT? What’d I do?”

He quickly unwraps the towel around his hand to show me. “Relax, honey! It’s not a big deal, see? See?”

I examine his hand. The first two fingers are cut near the second knuckles. “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry.”

“Stop it, Lei. I’m okay. Please, relax. Go back to bed. We’re getting out of here in the morning. Keep resting up.”

I step out onto the lanai and take a deep breath. No sound of generators. But there are sirens everywhere. Shouting. Car alarms. I look right, toward downtown, and see at least three separate fires billowing black smoke into the night. “What happened?”