Austin Aslan - The Islands at the End of the World

I’m feeling better about them. Still, Mom has to be worried about us. We’ve been hunted, attacked, shipwrecked, shot, held prisoner. I’ve leapt from a burning building, and I’m coughing blood and high on pot. She could hardly have feared any worse. I just want her to know that we’re still here, and that we’ll hold each other in our arms soon.

“Hana in the next day or two. We’ll find some way to get across the gap, and we’ll be there, just like that.”

“I really hope you’re right. I can’t take much more of this.”

“Oh, but you can. And you’ll have to. We both will: this is only the beginning, Lei. Hunters and gatherers. Tribal serfdoms. Survival of the fittest. We’re not going to be at the top of the food chain. We don’t have what it takes to be powerful. Mean. It’s groups like that sheriff’s posse that will be in charge. Shoot first, questions never. Fighting for what’s ours is the new norm, hon.”

I can feel panic returning. What happened yesterday was so wrong . I can scarcely grasp it.

I clasp on to images of Mom and Kai. “As long as we’re all together.”

“Amen.”

The old life isn’t all gone. Our bonds haven’t completely disintegrated. The weave is in our DNA, isn’t it? We’ll always start again. “Moloka`i was working. Starting fresh. What if all this technology and braininess got in the way, and now we can finally be back in touch with reality? What if it’s an opportunity ? If Uncle Akoni’s right, and the Emerald Orchid’s actually absorbing radiation, what if it’s all for the best?”

Dad is silent. “I’ve heard that crisis and opportunity are the same word in Chinese.”

“Hey, yeah.”

“A global catharsis. A do-over. Yeah. Remind me to get stoned with you more of ten.” Dad suddenly belts out in song. “We’ve got to get our-se-elves back to the Gaaaaarden …!”

Some seventies thing. I laugh.

Dad lies down. “I can’t believe it happened this way. I always thought it would be some Malthusian catastrophe: water wars, soil collapse, disease, swine flu, heat waves, ice ages. You name it. But no. It’s a Georgia O’Keeffe painting. Some … giant … fertility goddess from outer space finally did us all in.”

“Dad!”

“Well, am I wrong? Look at it! Am I wrong?”

I stare at the Emerald Orchid. I may never unsee what he just put in my head. Leave it to a guy to get all anatomical. It’s just a cloud. Definitely not a UFO. It’s a glowing cloud of gas or plasma or whatever. Like puffy summer clouds, you can see anything you want to in its shape.

This thing hasn’t changed shape much, though; it’s more rigid than a cloud. More substantial. But it’s different now. Out of focus. There’s something that wasn’t there on the first night I saw it.

“Dad, you see that other thing? Like a separate flower. Inside it, maybe? Behind it? I can’t tell.”

Dad sits up. “Yeah, I do. I saw that a couple of nights ago. It’s moved since then.”

It reminds me of the jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I recall an image of those beautiful orange globules and their neon tentacles, serenely suspended within their aquarium against a dark blue backdrop. The baby jellyfish and the adult jellyfish, all see-through and seemingly tangled, would align behind the glass the way this Emerald Orchid and its …

It is a good thing. It is done and my purpose is done

.

Suckle. Gather your strength

.

I gasp.

A whirlwind of memories assails me, each building on the next. Those dark seizurescapes, the snatches of imagery, the voice, the echoes of thought flowing through with my own consciousness like ropy folds of bloodshot pahoehoe flowing over rocky ` a`a .

I do not want to remember any of my seizures. Or what follows. But I can’t bury what I now see. It’s all coming back, like a furious swarm of hornets rattled from a hive, and the truth stings white-hot:

The Emerald Orchid is no cloud.

I have dreamt of these shores. I was born here, but I slipped away. Now I have reached the shallows, at long last, guided across the endless waters by ancient stars. These islands and their sacred tides call me forth

.

“Dad!”

“What?”

“It’s alive. The Orchid’s alive!”

There is new heat within my belly, and I yearn to spill the urge …

Dad is playful. “Whoa. I like it: some ancient, alien creature stirred from the cosmos itself. That’s … stellar.”

“No! I’m serious!” I want off this high. It’s no fun anymore. My mind is afire, racing to assemble the last pieces of a puzzle. I can’t believe it; it’s all so obvious now.

I belong here, and I am well. It is almost ready to come out

.

“Dad. It’s come here to calve! It’s given birth. It … It’s …” The words can’t keep up with the flood of imagery, the snippets of consciousness. I can hear its thoughts!

“The EKG is broken. I’m trying to make sense of your chart from yesterday. I compared it to your records from Hilo—the pattern is totally different—gibberish.”

“Have you heard them?”

“You a good listener, Leilani?”

The EKG could detect it. And Uncle Akoni could. He was half right: the Orchid surges through our minds as well as our motherboards! I wasn’t hearing transmissions, though; just thoughts. The signals churned unnoticed through my wandering thoughts as familiar imagery, forgotten once the black shroud of my fits had lifted.

I see the sacred honu … heaved ashore, bridging sea and surf, pushing back the sand to lay its eggs …

“A cosmic sea turtle.” I test the words.

“Yeah.” Dad is still having fun. “A heavenly honu , drifting through space, coming to shore.”

“Dad, stop . Listen to me. That thing is alive. Uncle Akoni was almost right. We can hear its thoughts.”

He’s looking at me now. I say, “I only put it together just now! But it is a … cosmic sea turtle! It was born here. It’s just returned to lay its eggs, or spawn, or whatever it does. It’s feeding on the atmosphere. That’s how it works!”

Dad stiffens. “Damn. Could this thing be a creature ? Does it come cyclically ?”

“I’m not crazy,” I say. “I’m not. It’s really true: I heard it. I didn’t realize. Maybe epileptics can hear it. Like our neural … weirdness … allows us to tune in to the signal.”

“Lei, calm down. I’m following you, okay?”

“Fo’ real?”

Dad stares up at the Orchids. I watch him closely and lose track of time. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but his mind is in overdrive. Finally, he says, “Maybe you’re right. What if you are? This could be the answer to the riddle! Depends on how often it comes to … to calve. But this could be the reason for each mass extinction. Could it be iridium based? Could iridium interfere with electronics and stuff? Maybe in combination with some other ionization? Does it drop meteors and muck up the atmosphere each time it comes?”

I’m trying to follow. “Wait. You’ve got to be kidding—the dinosaurs?”

“I’m serious. I think you’re on to something. We’ve been seeing lots of meteor-like activity. What if this … species … came and … shed materials, striking land and sea—the haze in the sky, the tsunamis. Last time it killed off the dinosaurs. And before that: the Permian-Triassic extinction that wiped out all trilobites; and—”

“Dad! No one cares about that.”

The sudden silence is startling. Dad looks over as if I’ve just slapped him. “I believe you,” he says. “All this talk about aliens. I was debating it in my head more than you know. It primed the pump. But this … this feels like it actually fits, somehow.”