Austin Aslan - The Islands at the End of the World

People begin shouting, in English, Japanese, and a couple of other languages.

“Asshole.”

“Hey, what’s happening? What’s the Emerald Orchid?”

“But my FAMILY! We’ve been separated! I have to find them first!”

“This is unbelievable!”

“When will it get back to normal?”

“You can’t do this to us!”

“Why won’t you tell us what happened?”

Dad releases the bag on his lap and puts his arm around me, squeezing me tight. “Stay together, okay?” he whispers. “No matter what.”

“Maybe if you smelled better.”

He offers me a wry smile. “You’re not a rose garden yourself right now, either.”

Dad’s right: I haven’t really scrubbed clean in days.

I’m not really sure how bad I look, but I doubt I’m as well off as Dad. He always looks a bit scraggly with his ancient T-shirts, five o’clock shadow, and sandy mop.

The bus pulls forward and the voices dwindle and fall silent. Someone is weeping behind me. I don’t turn around to investigate. I don’t think I could manage to move my head if I wanted to; we’re stuffed in tight. It’s almost comforting. The floundering freedom of the past week has been a disaster.

Maybe our luck has finally turned.

We could be back home by tonight , I tell myself over and over again. I know it’s wishful thinking, but I can’t stop the voice. Even tomorrow, or the next day. We’re going home .

The bus takes us around the westernmost point of O`ahu and turns. Twice, the steel-plated monster carrying us pushes abandoned cars out of the way. One tumbles down a cliff to the sea.

The sky is a mellow orange, and the bronze disk of the sun is soft—I can stare at it through the bus’s tinted windshield. I feel like I’m stuck in an old, grainy movie where the film itself has started to fade.

“Hey, what’s going on? Do you know? What’s happening on the mainland?” I quietly ask the driver.

He’s wearing sunglasses, but I see his eyes drift toward the rearview mirror. He studies me and returns to the road. He says, “If I knew the answer to that question, do you think I’d be sitting here on this bus with you?”

“Does anybody in the military know?”

The driver shrugs. “I don’t know, ma’am.”

Ma’am?

“I honestly don’t know.” Now he’s rueful.

I turn to Dad with a whisper. “Dad, why is the sky doing that? Is the Orchid doing it?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. The Orchid’s in space. It set before dawn. It’s not surrounding us, at least not its visible features.”

“Could be more meteor blasts. Hitting land. Or volcanic eruptions.”

“Lei, stop. Try not to worry about it. Did you know that the Big Island is where climate scientists measure the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide? It’s because there’s no cleaner air on the Earth—”

“Unless Mauna Loa exploded,” I say. “It’s overdue, isn’t it? All these meteor strikes could have jarred it awake. Or what if it’s radioactive fallout? Or—”

Dad sighs. “No. Please, Lei. Stop.”

We enter the town of Kailua. As we drive by the beaches, I see where tsunami waves tore through the eastern coast. My view is partially blocked by buildings and trees, but I can see overturned boats, giant tree skeletons, driftwood, and endless trash.

I remember Kailua Bay full of paddleboarders, rowers, kite surfers, and surfboarders. Today, a few fishermen stand in the surf, casting nets among waterlogged boat hulls and tangled globs of plastic.

The bus stops at a gatehouse and then passes over a grassy field into the Marine Corps Base on the bay. The tsunami left low-lying areas flooded or trashed. Crews of soldiers gather junk into large piles.

With rib-cage-rattling intensity, a cargo plane rises swiftly into the air, heading out over the ocean in the direction of the Big Island. The aircraft looks old, maybe even World War II era. I tap Dad’s shoulder. “Off to Hilo.”

Dad shrugs. “We’ll see, honey. I hope so.”

We pull into an open area with baseball fields, a football field and a track, and several tennis courts. Everything is compartmentalized with chain-link fence. Big canopy tents have been erected at large intervals and are connected with orange netting and long rope barricades. The grass has been trodden into great bogs of mud.

A collective gasp runs through the bus.

The entire complex of sports fields and parking lots and roads is swarming with people, most milling about in small areas or sitting on cots and overturned buckets. Long lines of waiting zombies curve toward the large tents and around buildings in the near distance.

We stop. I step off the bus and my hiking boots sink into the black soup of mud. A faint odor of ammonia eddies through the wind. A soldier behind a long table instructs me to spread out my bags and open them for inspection. Another soldier pats us down.

The private glances at our duffel bags, half-stuffed with food, and confiscates them.

“Hey! You can’t take that,” Dad barks. “That’s ours.”

The private ignores him, already making motions to pull another of our duffels off the table. Dad snatches one of the straps and begins a tug-of-war. The officer wins.

“Stop it!” Dad is shaking. He pulls back the last of our food bags before the officer can react. People disembarking from the bus slow and stare.

“Sir, calm down. Food items are not allowed within the waiting areas. It’s for your safety. The bags are still yours. Meals are provided while your travel arrangements are processed.”

Dad studies his adversary. He glances at me. I realize that I’m staring at him wide-eyed and temper my expression.

“Lance Corporal!” the private shouts to another soldier overseeing an inspection far to the right. The soldier turns, sees Dad clenching his food bags, and strides over.

“Dad,” I whisper, using my voice to try and calm him down. “It’s okay.” But is it? We’ve done a good job of rationing this food. It would be ridiculous to lose it.

The officer nods to the private and steps between Dad and the table. “Good afternoon, sir. I’m Lance Corporal Billings. What’s your name?”

“Uncle Sam. And you’re customer relations, or something?”

“Something like that.”

“Where are my balloons and free hot dog? Do I get a raffle ticket?”

Billings laughs. He ushers us to the side of the table. “Listen, Sam , this whole thing is crazy . We’re all adjusting. Everybody’s a little on edge.”

“And I’m killing the mood, right?”

“No worries. Here, I’ll walk with you over to your …”

“… cage?”

“… terminal. No, it’s not like that! That’s what I’m trying to say. Did you hear stories out there? Have you been trying to avoid us?”

Dad says, “I haven’t been trying to avoid anything.”

“What’s your name, really?”

“Dr. Michael Milton.”

“Okay, Dr. Milton. Can we finish inspecting your bags? We’re only checking in food and knives so fights don’t break out. You can keep everything else with you.”

Dad loosens his death grip on the duffel. “Why would fights break out over food?” A cargo plane marked with a white star inside a blue circle roars into the sky behind us. “Is everyone starving?”

Billings chuckles. “It’s not like that, Dr. Milton.”

He turns to me and asks brightly, “And what’s your name, young lady?”

I look at the ground. “Leilani.”

“We’re going to get you two home, okay? Where are you going?”

“Hilo.”

“Hilo! That’s all? You folks kama`āina?”