Austin Aslan - The Islands at the End of the World

“Oh, yeah. Well … anyway, I better go.”

“K’den. See you around.”

“I’ll be … here.” I turn to leave but whip back around when my stomach grumbles. My embarrassment fades. “Hey, Aukina?”

“Yeah, Lei?”

“I’m so hungry. Do you have any real food?”

Aukina shakes his head. “I’m hungry, too.”

I turn, but whip again as he adds, “Hey, Lei?”

“Yeah?”

“You see this?” he says, hefting his rifle with a wry smile.

I frown. “Yeah. So?”

“ ‘This is my boom stick,’ ” he begins. I laugh. That’s the most famous line from Army of Darkness , when the time-traveling hero Ash shows off his twelve-gauge Remington shotgun to King Arthur and a crowd of “primitive screw-heads.”

Aukina continues, grin widening, “ ‘S-Mart’s top of the line. That’s right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?’ ”

I march away, beaming. Oh. My. God. He’s an even bigger nerd than I am!

In the early afternoon, the rest of us are issued masks. I doubt I had anything to do with it. Apparently, someone dredged up a dusty box of medical supplies. They look like they’ve been in storage since the days of Pearl Harbor. Most people eagerly strap them on, and now only their wild eyes show their fear.

Dad and I put them on.

I pace for a bit, then disappear into my book. I read about King Kamehameha, who united the islands and abolished the bloodthirsty kapu , or system of taboos. And he won his later wars with a little help from Captain Cook and the other Europeans who “discovered” Hawai`i. Kamehameha’s rule was foretold, and the kahunas prophesied that his arrival would be marked by a fire in the sky. Turned out to be true. Halley’s Comet.

Maybe the Emerald Orchid is just a sign of good things to come.

Yeah, and maybe I’m a Chinese jet pilot .

I laugh out loud. Another quote from Army of Darkness . Where’s Aukina when you need him?

In the evening our soccer match is interrupted by the sound of gunfire from the camp across the road. Everyone rushes to the fence. I hear screams and shouting and see something that nearly stops my heart. A body is draped over the top of the other camp’s high fence. A group of soldiers scurries about, devising a plan to pull it down, while other soldiers push onlookers back.

Dad searches for his next words as we peer across the distance. “These camps aren’t going to hold together much longer.”

Our own wardens appear outside of our fence, blocking our view. “Turn around! Move away from the fence.”

I spot Aukina. “Hey!” I shout through my mask. “Did you guys shoot that guy?”

“Lei,” Dad begins, but his muffled protest dies as others around me take up the chorus. A yelling match ensues. The soldiers hold their position. Aukina and I share a glance before my view of him is blocked by another soldier. He looks sad … maybe even frightened.

Dad pulls me back from the fence by the sweaty collar of my raggedy blouse. “Someone tried to escape.”

We slouch back to our cot. “You okay, Lei?”

I force a smile, hoping Dad can see it in my eyes above the mask. I want to rip it off. It itches and it’s stuffy and it scares me. But I’m more scared to not have it on. I pat his arm. “Don’t worry, I won’t break into a seizure every time someone gets shot in the face.”

Dad presses his palms into his eyes, mumbles something.

“What?”

“Maybe you should,” he finally says.

“Huh?” A prickle of adrenaline shoots up my back.

Carefully, he says, “Have a seizure.”

“You’re asking me to go through that on purpose?” The question is calm, but I want to scream.

He presses forward. “I could play it up. We’d get shortlisted. Wake up in Hilo. This place is eating me up from the inside, Lei. I’m desperate. Aren’t you?”

“Dad.” My heart’s pounding. “I … I can’t just turn them on. We waited all that time at the clinic and …”

“You were on an experimental dose then. When you weren’t, they came fast and furious. Besides, I found this.” He pulls a pink artificial-sweetener packet from his pocket.

“Dad .” He didn’t just find that. He’s been looking for it, planning this .

“Or you could even fake one.”

“Stop it. Stop it.” I stand up and take a few steps away from him.

Dad closes his eyes, shakes his head. “I’m sorry. Forget it. I’m just … thinking out loud. It was dumb.” He tosses the sweetener packet in the dirt.

I sit back down on the cot. “Don’t … feel bad.”

“I’m sorry, Leilani,” Dad says with a crackly voice. “I haven’t handled this very well.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not James Bond. I’m … Mike.”

“Oh, Dad.” There’s so much I want to say. I remove my mask and I sit with him. I reach out and gently touch the raised skin on his hand, a scar he’ll probably always have as thanks for keeping me from choking.

“You’re … exactly the dad I want you to be. We’re in this together, remember? You said that to me. We’re both responsible for each other, okay?”

He nods, but I wonder if he heard. He pushes his mask up against his forehead. “I can tell you all you need to know about biogeochemical cycles, why rare Hawaiian plants aren’t getting pollinated anymore. What good is any of that? The birds and the trees won’t need my help once humanity dies off. I couldn’t even get us off O`ahu. God, I miss Malia so damned much. Kai, too.”

“Dad.” I bury my head in his shoulder. Humanity dying off?

“Day after next, it’ll be three weeks since we flew out here. Three weeks! We should have—”

“Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty. Right?” I say. “Unless you’re one-eyed Rocky the Randy Pirate,” I add, laughing.

“Then it’s just … twenty.”

He cracks up, and it makes my heart sing.

“It’s still so surreal,” I say. “I just want to take it all back, go back in time, not get on that plane. Stockpile food and put up a fortress in time. Live somewhere else, where this nightmare isn’t happening.”

Dad wraps his arm around my shoulder. “I should have let you bring the board.”

“Huh?”

“Your longboard. I should have let you bring it. If I could go back in time, that’s what I’d change.”

“What?”

“Well, I’d change everything else, too. But—weirdest thing—that’s been on my mind. I was wrong.”

I laugh. “I actually think you were right.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. If I had brought it, I would have lost it. Now it’s waiting for me back home.”

“Good point.”

Dad absently draws in the dirt with his finger.

“We can’t stay here, Lei. These … meals … we’re getting weaker, not stronger. If we don’t get a plane tomorrow or the next day … things aren’t going to hold together here. So many people want out. I’m going to speak to some of them tomorrow, see if as a group we can … ask to leave.”

“What will we do instead?”

Dad releases an explosive sigh. “We waited too long in Honolulu, and I don’t want to make that mistake again.”

“They just made it real clear that we can’t leave.”

“We have to ask. If they still say no, then … I want to get out before things deteriorate.”

I look at the fence. The shouting has only gathered steam. “ Before they deteriorate?”

Dad grins ruefully. “We’ll have a new moon in a couple days. It’ll be darkest then. We have to find a way out during that window.”

“Maybe we’ll get on a flight before then.”

Dad turns away. I reach down and snatch up the artificial sweetener while he isn’t looking.