Austin Aslan - The Islands at the End of the World

“Yup.” My eyes flick up to his. “Mind if we snag a quick snack from the bags first?”

Billings holds my gaze. Finally, he gently takes the last duffel bag from Dad and gives it to the private. He turns back to us and hands us each a string cheese and several ticket stubs. “Not exactly a raffle, but hold on to it tightly. This is your bag tracker, okay?

“Here, I’ll take you over to the interisland line.” He takes my backpack and hoists it up onto his shoulder.

What a gentleman .

We follow the lance corporal through the mud. “I won’t lie to you,” he says, “no one looking to get to the mainland has left yet, and interisland transport is happening slowly. But it is happening!”

Relief washes over me in a wave.

“You’ve gotta remember: we’re all reacting to a scenario no one ever imagined. It’s been a messy process, but we’re getting there.”

“And what scenario is that?” I ask, biting into my stolen snack.

Billings stops. “I call it the ‘this thing isn’t going away’ scenario. My superiors have other labels for it, but my job is to calm you folks down, not rile you up.” He smiles.

“Wonderful,” Dad groans. “You’re so comforting.”

“But we’re dedicated to the displaced, don’t you worry. The governor was here yesterday!” Dad gives me a who cares? expression, which I return.

“What does the governor have to do with the Marine Corps Base?” I ask.

Billings shrugs. “Nothing. Power play he’s sure to lose.” He pushes ahead of us.

“That may be the first thing he’s said that I believe,” Dad says, to me.

We arrive at the end of a very long line. It’s several people thick, and it hugs the walls of a large swimming-pool complex and wraps around the corner. My hopes of getting home today nosedive.

Billings says, “Here you are, Dr. Milton and Leilani. Thank you for your patience and cooperation. Just remember that you’re probably in the safest place on the island right now. We’ll get you home as soon as we can.”

“Wait a sec,” Dad says. “Really, that’s it? You have to give me something . Come on, what’s going on? What did you mean by ‘it’s not going away’?”

“Mike, I’m not going to bullshit you. Fact is, I don’t have any facts. Your guess is as good as mine. The higher-ups don’t share. And it’s not my job to ask. My job is to keep everyone safe and maintain order so that we can all pick up where we left off once things return to normal.”

“Please, Lance Corporal,” Dad begs.

The officer’s expression chills. “Mike, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Billings steps away. Immediately, he’s eye level with an agitated Asian American woman, distracting her from her tirade about the mud.

“That guy was born for this,” Dad says.

“You should finish your tantrum now anyway.”

“Oh, I’m hardly done.”

“That may be the first thing you’ve said that I believe.”

We both laugh.

We’re on our own again, behind an elderly Hawaiian couple and exposed to the intense heat of a sickly sun. Thanks to the constant cooling presence of O`ahu’s trade winds, we survive a miserable three hours waiting to proceed through the line. We talk story with our neighbors as we constantly shift on our feet to catch the breeze.

“Where are you folks off to?” Dad asks the couple ahead of us.

The old man gives Dad a hard look, and then leans in close. “Lāna`i, by way of Maui.”

“Our son’s family lives out there,” the woman adds.

The husband scowls at her. “You gotta be more careful.”

“With these two? Relax, Kani.” She smiles past him. “We live here, but luckily we pay some of the bills on the farm, so we can show paperwork. A ticket to ride.”

Someone comes down the line with Dixie cups of lukewarm water, and we greedily guzzle them.

“Keep your cup,” the soldier orders. “You won’t get another.”

“We’re trying to get back to our family, too,” I say to the old couple. “On Hawai`i.”

“The Big Island. Good,” the old woman says. “If this goes on, that’ll be the best place to be. Big Island’s four times bigger than O`ahu, ah? With one-tenth the population. And there are more cows and wild pigs and goats than there are people. Pressures over there will be different.”

“You haoles better watch it,” Kani warns. “Pressures will be different for you , no doubt.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “We’re from there. Not gonna let anyone push us around.”

“It’ll be hard,” Dad admits. “A lot of folks are going to try and spread out if things don’t return to normal. The pressures will build.”

“That’s what we’re hoping to do once we’ve gathered,” the wife says. “I’m glad we have a ticket off this island. We’re out of food. We tried everything short of thievery. There’s nothing honest left here.”

“Oh, there’s food,” the old man says. “We just weren’t the ones to hoard it. If only this had happened twenty years ago, I’d’ve been right out there scooping it up early.”

The woman slaps his upper arm. “Knock it off, lōlō . You’d’ve grabbed nothing but Spam and Cheetos and boxed wine, and we’d’ve died of malnutrition.”

Finally, we arrive at the front of the line. The private asks for Dad’s driver’s license, jots down a couple of notes, scribbles out two blue name tags, and waves us through.

“That’s it?” Dad asks.

“Now you wait until your number block is called. Be ready to go at any moment.”

“We just waited for three hours!”

The soldier actually chortles. “Get used to it.”

“In there?” Dad almost groans. “District nine?”

The soldier nods. “We can’t have folks wandering around the base. It’s for your safety.”

Dad glances at me and then leans in on the officer. I can hear what he’s saying, though. “Hey, my daughter has epilepsy. She’s had a couple big seizures lately. Is there …?”

“I’ll make a note of it.” The soldier looks me up and down, notes my medical bracelet. “We have good medics around; don’t worry. If something happens, you’ll be taken care of.”

He brushes us to the side and motions to the next people in line.

“What were you after, handicapped parking?” I say.

Dad sighs. “I don’t know, hon. Some sort of leg up, that’s all.”

We shuffle forward along another muddy path lined with orange plastic netting and arrive at a field draped with a dozen massive camouflage tarps, under which hundreds of people are crowded, cowering from the sun.

A low chain-link fence runs along the perimeter of the field. Stretches of it look like they’ve always been there, but some are new. Silvery-white razor wire is looped along the top—a long, stretched-out Slinky from hell. Shiny new.

“District nine? What’s that?”

Dad feigns shock. “I haven’t shown you District 9 yet?”

“No.”

Dad’s tried to introduce me to all the great science-fiction movies of his time, showing me the films and television episodes that meant so much to him growing up. I tease him that I only play along because it gets me out of doing homework, but I’ve really enjoyed the “lessons.” I almost died of embarrassment when he made me and Tami watch that old Bill and Ted movie—but it was funny. Those days now seem long ago, in a galaxy far away. And I might never have them back.

“It’d be a good one to watch right around now,” Dad says. “About aliens stuck in a refugee camp in South Africa.”

I laugh dryly. Is that what we are? Aliens on our own islands?

We pass into the camp and search for shade. Departure announcements come about once every two hours. Each time, only a handful of people dash away with the escort. All of the announced flights are for Maui.