False Forecast
On Monday morning one of the articles in the local newspaper read: “Among the Missing — Boat Carrying a Young Woman and Her Pet Goat Was Found Stranded in the Ocean.”
Two days prior, she started her Saturday off the same way she always did, with a 2 mile trail run at 6am, picking her favorite spot for the activity in the national park, 15min away from where she stayed. In the headphones she was listening to an up-tempo electronic music to get pumped, from the playlist she’d created and titled “run around” — self explanatory name and purpose. Chilly early morning breeze from the Pacific Ocean, traveling far and seeping in between the trees and plants of the park, was caressing her hair while she was on the move, shifting her toned feet like a young gazelle of the prairie, as she was embracing and enjoying the magical scenery of many green tones the island had to offer, like the last rainforest of FernGully (Disney film) fighting to preserve its picturesque enchantment.
Seeing her move with such grace you would be surprised to find out that she slipped out of her last night date’s house around 2–3am to avoid the awkwardness of the morning after interaction. She met this person on the dating app, they went to a local dive bar for drinks, which had a stage with karaoke. Her date was urging her to go up and perform a duet but she was too shy to do so, so he had to embarrass himself on his lonesome. Handsome but too self absorbed, slightly dumb and boring. Date went ok, as most first dates would, plenty of meaningless and repeating small talk like chatter with slight flickers of mild interest at times. She insisted on splitting the bill half and half, he invited her over, she agreed. The sex was ok, it was rather whatever, he had a nice athletic body, part of the main reason she was right there next to him, but the guy didn’t have the right rhythm, at times he would pump away super fast for a short period of time, then stop, then go slow, then fast again. The attention he’d given her was pleasurable but she did not get to come. So after the guy fell asleep she sneaked out of his house soon after.
She was recounting last night’s events in her head during the run. However, it wasn’t much that stood out, a typical one night stand, nothing remarkable all in all. Around the 2 mile mark she reached the finish line, hopped into her car at the parking lot and drove to the beach, where she sat for a good 30min: looking at the ocean and meditating, something to calm her body after some serious cardio exercise early in the day (that woke her up and got her going).
She went home after, took a quick shower to freshen up, made herself a healthy breakfast (oatmeal with granola and berries), and sat on the deck in the back of her house, looking up at the mountain with its waterfalls and streams partially covered by clouds and fog. She was truly living in paradise. After each bite taking her time flipping through different news articles on her phone. She lived in HST time zone which meant she was behind on all the things happening on the mainland in the country, as she was trying to catch up with Saturday’s occurrences and events that already took place a few thousand of miles away.
The early bird does catch the worm, but it can get ugly real quick if you bite off more than you can chew.
Taking her time, with no rush, she finished breakfast, cleaned the dishes, and was ready to move on with her Saturday until her phone lit up, made an aggressive siren-like noise and deliberately startled her. An alert said that it was not a drill and for all residents of the islands to seek an immediate shelter. Thoughts started racing through her head after reading the message, the phone slipped out of her hand and dropped on the floor, screen cracked. She tried to pick it up but cut her finger on a cracked corner by accident. With blood dripping down her hand onto the tiled floor, she was running around looking for a first-aid kid to bandage it up like a chicken with a head cut off. She went from being a composed put-together calculated lady to an impulsive terrified all-over-the place freak in a matter of seconds. The danger was still in the air.
With her hand patched up, she read the alert once again not believing her eyes, to reassure her brain, and it did, it said the same exact thing, it was the reality she was in, the cards she was dealt. She started hearing low screams of people from the distance, easy to assume who were dealing with the same news. Where would you seek shelter on the island?
She was on the shorter side, standing proud at 5'2". Some people did not take her seriously because of her height, it was hard to command authority for her, and a childlike face did not help the cause either, as she looked younger than she actually was. She moved to paradise by the name of Kauai running away from the commotion of the big city, the big apple. She visited the island just for a week at first, and then falling in love with its natural beauty she didn’t want to go back, so she decided to stay indefinitely. Working in a fast-paced environment for years, as a columnist at a popular fashion magazine, it came to a point she felt burnt out, needed a break, desired to find peace. 33 years of age now, but she had quite a meltdown around the time she was turning 30. The crisis of “fading youth” every young woman experiences, when your 20s come to an end and you feel as if you still haven’t accomplished much, haven’t gotten yourself to the point you had in mind as you entered your 20s. Thinking back how by the time you turn 30 you think you would already have your career sorted, married, house purchased/secured, a lot of traveling done and countries visited, children soon to come, but no, life never works out how you imagine, which gave her those blues, being hard on herself, with no set place or real purpose. Moreover, building a family and having kids seemed a far-fetched reality for her, neither she thought about it in those days, nor had a desire to pursue it any time soon. Part of the reason she moved and escaped New York, seeking new beginnings, rethinking her whole approach to her body, being insecure for as long as she could remember, despite frequent attention shown by the opposite gender, she decided to take up the ideology of healthy body = healthy mind more seriously, as she started to read more on nutrition, exercising more frequently and way smarter, and meditating to calm the anxiety and nerves. With several years of intense self-work and self-search she was a gem to look at, with a toned beautiful strong body and a sharp mind to match. A dame to die for. Now with the level she elevated herself to it was really hard to find a partner who can match it. So she frequented the dating apps, getting her fix of physical pleasure where she could, but not getting her mind stimulated much. Dating scene was pretty narrow on the island since majority of the daily population were tourists, and it worked on a small town principle, everybody sort of knew each other’s business. So finding a good man was a struggle, which she accepted and it didn’t bother her that much anymore as she was enjoying the place she’d gotten to as she’d worked hard to achieve, the place of confidence and self-love. Yet there was still doubt about the biological clock ticking and desire to figure out your exact goals in life and accomplish more. The thoughts that slowly would creep into her head as she was about to doze off to sleep every night, to the sound of waves crashing at the shore in the distance, under the glow of the tranquil moon. Pondering on death and existence, and everything being in vain, how you can just disappear one day, and everything you’ve lived for, worked for, built for, would vanish along with you, a pondering you can’t easily shake off, so sometimes she would take a hit or two of her e-pen with indica to be able to depart to the dreamland at last.
Upon processing the alert message her mind automatically went to the worst, there had to be a nuclear strike incoming. She turned on the TV and all the broadcasts were interrupted to show this message. They were urging everyone to stay inside or otherwise seek shelter. Catastrophe movies were her least favorite genre, she hated them, they never had any real plot except for the advancement of the cataclysm chosen for a film, and were plainly boring, but now she was dreading to be a part of one, with little to no time until the disaster forecast came to be. Living in paradise usually comes with a price, the price of recurring natural disasters like earthquakes, landslides, volcano eruptions, which upon transpiring would give you a reality check, remind you to stay on your toes.
Considering the nature of the alert there was absolutely no time for mass evacuation, which made her think was the reason why the local government was urging people to stay inside, to avoid the panic and hysteria that would ensue otherwise. With this kind of thought process she quickly decided that her only salvation would be to go as far away from the island as she could. If the strike were to hit the land, she thought, the whole island would be obliterated, there was no point going for elevation, escaping into mountains. Escaping on a plane or a helicopter was not an option either, as she didn’t know anyone who was a pilot and all of the landing / take off sites were too far away. So water was her only solution — escaping in a boat, away from the shore.
Most fishing charters were departing from the harbor in Lihue by the airport, but she knew damn well it would take way too long to get there. So she had a family in mind that she was friends with, a cheery ocean lover couple in their 40s, who owned a small motorboat. They lived in Wainiha Valley, about 10min west from where she was. So she decided to take her chances and see if they shared the same idea and wanted to take the boat out to get further away from the land.
When fire starts to catch in the house, with smoke slithering along the ceiling, covering up the whole space, taking over the house. What are the first and only things you think of to take with you before you try to make a run for it, to escape the tongues of the flame trying to kiss your soles on the way out? Is it a phone, a passport / ID, a stash of money, a laptop, a camera, family memorabilia, an old photograph? Being put in a complicated situation, between a rock and a hard place, do most make the right choices, or do we just think of preserving ourselves and forget about everything and everyone else? They do tell you to put on and secure your oxygen mask on the plane first, before you tend to your child, because if you don’t survive, the chances of your child’s survival are slim to none.
One little detail that wasn’t mentioned before was her roommate. There are no predators in Hawaii, which permits people to hunt a growing population of some wild animals, which were originally domestic and had been introduced to the islands by import. She was on a hike in Waimea Canyon, making her way down to the waterfall, to see it up close and take a dive in the water at its foot. She came across some small animal crying from the bushes, seeing a patch of black fur sticking out in between the leaves. It was a baby goat, scared and shaking, crying out for its mom. She gave it water and waited a bit to see if there were any older goats in the area who could take care of the baby, but none came. Goat’s mother probably was killed or died of natural causes or an accident, so the baby had no-one to take care of it, and would meet the same destiny as its mom. So she decided to take the goat in and give it shelter. After a few weeks of living with a baby goat she decided to keep it as a pet and named it Una. Baby goat spent the majority of time in her backyard, as they lived together in idyllic harmony.
Naturally, her pet-motherly instinct was to save her baby Una first. Second, was to grab a backpack and to quickly throw in some essentials for disaster escape. Water bottle, couple of breakfast bars, and deciding she might need a weapon of sorts to protect herself, choosing the best option she had at hand, her favorite and the biggest kitchen knife she owned — wrapped it in the towel and dropped it in the backpack as well. Most wouldn’t think straight in a situation like this, but she was pretty on point, as if she’d been training for this day, like a person who watches zombie apocalypse movies and takes mental notes of things to do and not to do, just in case. On the way out, with the backpack on her shoulder and Una on her arm, she grabbed the car keys and slammed the door behind her.
It was close to impossible to use the shattered screen on her phone, without adding up to the hand cut count. She was living by Hanalei Bay on the northern side of Kauai. She’d explored a lot and knew the island as the back of her hand, the non-damaged one, and luckily did not need to rely on GPS.
Streets were deserted, everyone was probably home, glued to the screen, awaiting development and updates on the horrific news. Texting and calling their loved ones. Praying. Promising if all works out, never to abandon their beliefs ever again. Hoping for the best.
Her mind was racing, as she was speeding down the road, time was of the essence. Halfway to her destination in Wainiha Valley, after about 5 minutes of driving, having to slow down she encountered a serious car crash on the side of the road, that couldn’t have happened too long ago, you could still smell the burnt rubber and car fumes in the air, it was right by the intersection where the old man Emilio would have his stand selling pineapples and mangoes, but he was nowhere to be seen that day. It was a crash of two cars, from the looks of it and tire marks on the concrete, one of the cars was swerving and bumped into another car going in the opposite direction, the car that was swerving had minor damage on the front bumper and had a driver side door open, it was abandoned on the side of the road with no driver to be seen anywhere around, while the other car that was hit, bounced off the road after the collision and crashed into the tree, it was totaled. From afar It looked like the person driving that car was still inside.
Despite the gravity of the situation, the danger was still incoming, but she had a visceral reaction deciding to pull over and stop the car to see if she could offer any assistance. As she approached the destroyed vehicle, the sight almost made her puke. In the driver’s seat she saw a distant but still familiar face with a massive wooden branch stuck through his chest. It was the face of the boy she saw up close and personal the night before, the boy she hooked up with and left without saying goodbye in the middle of the night. All life escaped from his wide open brown eyes. He lived on the other side of the island and she had no clue what he was doing in these parts. Unable to believe what just happened, for some time she was staring at him motionlessly, glued in place, but had to quickly snap back to reality. She decided there was no point to call 911 and report the crime scene considering apparent danger and madness on the whole island with the forecasted incoming threat, and there was no way to save him anymore, it was crystal clear that he was already gone.
Only once she looked death in the eyes before, when she was still a baby. Her and her mom were visiting her mom’s parents, when they entered the house, in the living room they discovered her grandpa per usual sitting in his favorite armchair but with his head leaned back, open book resting on his lap, mouth wide open, chest not moving, and eyes rolled back, filled with infinite emptiness. Her mom cried uncontrollably and told her she shouldn’t look at the grandpa in this state, while she didn’t know what was going on, how to take it or how to react, what it all meant. Later on her parents explained that grandfather was no more. They attended the funeral a week after and she saw even more people shedding the tears of sorrow in front of her, saying how sorry they were for her loss, yet she was still confused how to take it, how to react.
This time was no different in that aspect, she didn’t cry either, it didn’t necessarily have to do with how close she was to the deceased, but with yet another shock of a situation, and also the danger was still around the corner. Trying to walk off the stupor on the way back to the car, where Una was probably starting to get worried, she was going through memories of her grandfather: how he used to sit on the side of her bed and read thrilling stories to her until she drifted off to sleep, or sing old and sometimes gloomy songs in the language of his people, the language she learned from her grandparents growing up and could barely speak nowadays, or him teaching her chess and giving her a little pinch every time she missed her king being checked when they played, as he never announced the checks like the pros — those memories temporarily helped to warm her heart and, even if for a short moment, transport her to a happy place.
She arrived at her friends’ house shortly after. Knocked on the front door the first time and waited, knocked on the door the second time and waited again. It seemed nobody was inside, their car wasn’t parked by the house, they must’ve left before the alert was sent out. Their boat was stored in the garage behind the house, and luckily for her it hadn’t been locked as she slid open the gate. It was sitting on the trailer, whitish old model of the motorboat with slightly chipped light blue lines painted on each side, ironically bearing the name “Last Hope” on the port. They took her out on the water several times, for a picnic in the middle of the ocean with some diving involved, telling her stories about the marine life they encountered. She never saw them quarrel or bicker, they had the same interests and were very similar in the temperament department, working perfectly around each other, like two identical puzzle pieces that somehow fit together, they were meant to be. At times they would let her take the tiller and steer the boat, teaching her how to be a captain, which was beneficial for what she was about to sign up for.
One time, they took her to a spot locally known for dolphin sightings, and after 30min of searching and cruising around they accepted that none would be spotted that day. However, as they were leaving the area, out of the blue, they noticed two dolphins swimming up to the boat and continuing to in the same direction it was headed, one swimming along on each side, occasionally jumping out of the water to show off, but as her friends stopped the boat to try and interact with them, the dolphins continued up ahead, bidding the farewell in their squeaky language. Fascinating creatures, capable of self harm similar to humans, but unlike us they can control their breathing to completely stop it at will. When deliberately holding your breath for too long you will eventually lose consciousness after your brain no longer gets a supply of oxygen, which in turn will make you start breathing again, enabled by a primitive reflex of self-preservation instilled in our bodies from the dawn of time. Animal cruelty is mostly the cause for these poor life forms to end their existence, enslaved and shut away in small and filthy water containers for the sole purpose of entertainment of our species, robbed of the freedom a wild animal deserves.
Back at her friends’ boat garage, in the predicament everybody was in, she decided there was no time to wait around or hesitate. She backed up her car, hitched up the trailer, and off they went to the beach, which was only a mile away. She was hoping her actions wouldn’t end up leaving her friends out to dry, hoping they had an escape plan of their own, the last hope.
With Una calmly sitting by her side, she thought about all the people who came to visit Hawaii for a special occasion and now were facing this tragedy. All of the honeymooners, newlywed couples who wanted to spend their first official time together away, celebrate their marriage in an exotic place, soaking up the tranquility of the islands. But here they were, the paradise was lost — this situation truly redefined and tested the idea of “till death do us part”. Or all of the future to be mothers taking their babymoon trips, with their visibly pregnant bellies out in the sun, enjoying the remaining careless months of life, before you have to dedicate it fully to another human being that comes out of your own body and takes a claim on it. A mother’s body no longer belongs to her, it belongs to her newborn, up until a certain point where the child is old enough to stop being breastfed. Fertility, a gift and a currency of attraction, attraction of the opposite sex historically programmed to be following the one who could bear children and continue the lineage, reptilian brain that seeks out the most fruitful candidate for reproduction. But now the only thing on all of the aforementioned mooners, and non-mooners so to say, the regular folk, was praying for preserving the safety of their present family tree. How could a romantic place turn so grim in a matter of seconds — one incident is all it takes.
At the beach there was a couple, a man and a woman, probably in their late 50s, with greyish hair and wrinkles. They were standing together with his right hand wrapped around her shoulder and her left hand around his waist, looking out into the distance, looking at the ocean, accepting and awaiting what was about to come. The lady worked at a pharmacy and had her hands on a little stash of morphine pills. It was the perfect time to split a pill with her husband, as they stood there, on the golden sand, in a state of euphoria, wrapped up like a single being. When the end is near, taking drugs and going out with the bang is a reasonable solution — to feel ecstatic or to numb all the pain, whichever works. Morphine would’ve been nice for her bleeding hand, or the spiking stress levels, but she had no time for that, she had a whole escape plan to pull off.
In the year of 79 AD, only a modern lifetime after the Christ was born and first walked the Earth, allegedly, eruption of volcano Vesuvius occurred in a town called Pompeii, which made its name in ancient history. Almost a day prior to the eruption it started raining pumice which allowed for the smart or the scared to get their most precious belongings and escape to safety, only if they reacted immediately, the volcano was gracious enough to provide a warning before its two day fire show spectacular. When lava starts to run down the mountain range, completely incinerating everything on its way, it’s only a matter of time until the whole surrounding landscape is permanently altered. At that point you only have two options really: to look at it or to look away — the result is the same either way.
She saw her friends launch their boat before and was hoping she could pull it off too. She started backing up her car through the sand, all the way, tires almost getting stuck, trying to get the trailer to submerge into the water. Once the boat was level with water, floating slightly above it, she unhooked it from the fully submerged trailer, transferred her backpack and the pet from the car, and hopped in herself. She did this task with precision and not a second wasted, she was born to survive, she was a natural. To her surprise, the water that day was the calmest she’d ever seen, no waves whatsoever, unthinkable for Kauaian shores.
With all the commotion and rushing to escape she forgot about something very important, her parents. Wondering if they heard the news, she pulled out her phone and saw a lot of missed calls, it was not easy to operate her phone as the screen was fully shattered, but she was lucky it still worked. She tried to call her parents back but the service was in and out on the beach and it would cut off after a ring or two. The same way as on New Years, when you can barely call someone as “all the lines are busy”, too many people making calls at the same time, to say their loveyous and goodbyes. So she decided to send a simple text message, just in case, which was a task in and of itself, to type along the spiderwebs of the glass. She fancied her chances of text over voice message being successfully sent out to be higher, hoping it would be delivered.
She wasn’t estranged from her family but also wasn’t particularly close with her parents, they didn’t have a bad relationship either, they just never spoke about serious things, things that mattered, so they didn’t really know her, what was going on inside a head of hers, in turn she didn’t know much about their worries or inner troubles, as an unspoken rule they kept all of it to themselves and stuck to the conversation of what happened, the recounts of daily routines, meals and near future activity plans, as opposed to communicating feelings and emotions. Being born as the first generation immigrant irreversibly created a gap, a visible disconnect between her and them, they’d sacrificed a lot and done a ton to be able to provide her with the life she had. Growing up she was reprimanded for getting bad grades, as if that was the most important thing the child should be judged based on, the child’s mental wellbeing was irrelevant to them, where they came from they did not have the luxury of being emotionally troubled, they had other necessities to worry about, so all they could do is repeat the upbringing tactics their parents used on them. They were not religious but still very conservative in their beliefs and she became a free spirit as a teenager they tried to repress, which resulted in outbursts and quarrels and disagreements, a young bird who escaped her cage but was still too scared to take flight. And when she was old enough to move out, she did, distance helped avoid those arguments and misunderstandings, and time healed. But everyone grows up eventually, and they’ve managed to salvage what was broken, to mend and rebuild, build up on what was always there, the separation helped. Nevertheless she forgave them for what one would consider as just parenting and another would deem as emotional abuse, as she got older she understood and let all the resentments go, she did love them no matter what, you don’t get to choose your parents, but you get to learn from their mistakes, and learn how to love them. The message read: “i will always love you”, nothing more, nothing less. She considered herself a spiritual person and believed in souls never ceasing to exist, in hopes that was the case.
The outboard engine was lowered and after several attempts she managed to ignite her vessel of hope. She was operating the boat without any real sense of direction, she was just trying to get away, away from the shore, away from Kauai, and on top of all away from the coming danger. And even if she was a pro at operating the craft, in the mindset she was in, under tremendous stress, all bets were off. She took the course North. Despite how old it looked the boat was moving fast, it was powerful, eating up those nautical miles like it was nothing. After going for about 10min, until her island was already far away, as small as a rock floating in the distance, she continued on, bow splitting the water in front, making way for her, leaving the foamy trail behind. With each passing minute she was starting to get more and more confident driving it. As she was rejoiced by what seemed to be a getaway made, the boat started slowing down.
When the engine made its final exhale and completely shut off, she tried to reignite it a few more times after realizing she never did check the fuel before launching the boat, as her friends had always done before taking it out of the garage. Multiple scenarios rushed through her head immediately. She was a decent swimmer, but they were already too far away from the shore to swim back, she would never make it, plus she wouldn’t be able to swim with Una, and leaving her loyal pet to die in the middle of the ocean was out of the question — a captain can’t abandon its ship. Calling for help was the next best alternative. With her phone being in horrible condition, and since she’d never gotten around to setting up Siri to assist her in troubling times, she barely managed to dial 911, with no success in reaching them, as she had no service. Emergency service must’ve been having a tough time themselves considering the amount of phone calls they were probably getting at that time of chaos, while they had no-one to call for help themselves, she thought to herself. It would be hard to get through with zero bars on the service scale active in the first place. So she continued to press the call button, hoping somehow the boat will float towards the area where her phone catches a little bit of that cellular connection.
Meanwhile, Una was completely out of her element, confused by everything that was going on around her that day. To be in the middle of the ocean with nothing to see around you but an endless body of blue water — it’s not a place for a goat to be.
Our heroine’s hand was soaked in her dried up blood, the bandage practically glued to it. It just hit her like a ton of bricks, she realized how tired she was.
The boat wasn’t the only thing dying that day, her cellphone battery was the next to go. But miraculously, when it seemed the phone was about to go black for good, it managed to catch one bar and a call went through. Operator picked up, but the connection was really choppy, breaking up, going in and out, she could barely decipher the voice coming from the speaker of her banged up cracked phone. So she yelled out, “Please help, I’m in a motorboat, north of the island of Kauai, trace my phone for location, the boat is dead.” She repeated her plea a few more times, without getting any response from the other end, until the phone did die. Did the person on the other end hear anything she said? There was no way to know for sure, only hope was on her side, just like the name of the boat was on, unless rescued she had no other means of surviving in that situation. On land there was a danger of the nuclear strike, at sea she was stranded and immobile, what a fateful combination of luck. That day wasn’t her day whatsoever. If a strike were to hit her island, there was no chance anybody would have time to be worried about rescuing some girl with a goat aboard the motorboat stranded in the middle of the ocean, people would have far greater things to worry about.
A few minutes later her cellphone shut off. She emptied out the contents of her backpack she’d packed in haste. Water bottle, three granola bars, and a knife. She decided to be conservative with consumption of her only sources of food and liquid. She broke off a few pieces of granola and gave them to Una, taking a short sip of the water right after. They would have to wait for a very long time, she thought, if any rescue were to ever show up.
Few hours later they were still there, in the boat, floating, moving where the ocean carried them. At that point it looked cold and unwelcoming, like a lifeless body of water, a dead sea, sea for the dead better yet. How many wonders and secrets were below them, deep in the murkiness of the water on the ocean bed, hiding in those depths, unable to surface because the pressure wouldn’t allow it, the pressure keeping them at bay.
Her body was still to preserve the energy under a scorching afternoon sun, her mind was running wild. She was juggling many thoughts, her family, her childhood, her adulthood, how many things she wanted to do, and the lack of time to accomplish them. How much she wished she had some weed on her to help relax, since it was a waiting game at that point and she could do nothing to aid their rescue, she had to rely on others and for Ms Fortune to look her way, to send the winds of change to blow the boat back to safety, if there was any of it left on land. She assumed that if the strikes did hit nearby islands she would’ve surely heard something or seen some smoke aftermath, so she was hoping that danger was omitted.
She had a picture of the mushroom cloud from Nevada Test Site in mind. The Nuketown that still preserves the highest levels of radiation on land to this day. US has to be number one in everything despite the cost — this nation was exposed to a dose 500 times of Chernobyl’s radiation, which could potentially explain the high rate in all types of cancer in this country. “You don’t shit in your own backyard” phrase takes quite a literal meaning in this case. The damage humans have done to this planet over the last century is purely unfathomable. Technical progress has its toll, the bill somebody would have to foot.
What seemed like another hour had passed. Una was starting to get jumpy, crying and running around the little space of the boat. The girl was thinking about her friends, people she knew from the island, wondered how they were doing, hoping they were ok. She noticed a school of yellow fish, judging by its numbers better yet a whole university, that started forming and swimming around the boat, circling it. A wall of maybe hundreds of little fish forming one big tornado of fish spinning in the water. It was a sight to see, the ocean world, indifferent to the current problem of humans, thinking only about now, not looking into the future. They were dancing in the water until all of a sudden they all swam away, and she saw a huge whale jump out in the distance. It looked even bigger in real life, a cachalot the size of a four story house, plopping back down in the water and creating a wave that was heading her way. She held on tight to Una as the wave significantly died down before reaching their boat and just lifted and tilted it ever so gently.
One summer, back when she was 13 or 14, her dad decided to take their family fishing, the activity he usually had done to escape his family before. Prior to that she hadn’t gone on any sort of vacation or family trip with her parents since she was in elementary school. Also she was an only child, a lot of cousins but no brothers or sisters, that she knew of at least, so she would usually just spend the summers playing with her cousins of the similar age. Dad decided to take her and her mom to a remote Chipewyan Lake in Alberta, Canada. They had to fly to an airport in a tiny town of Fort McMurray, and then take a small charter plane directly to the lake from there, with only them and another family of four on board, parents and two boys around her age.
The first day her dad woke everyone up very early, when it was still dark out, and forced them out into the cold, as he said you’re supposed to start the fishing day early if you want to catch anything, once the waters are still calm and serene. That day he was unsuccessful and it seemed no fish was taking the bait he was serving, he was mad, and naturally blamed his family for making too much noise and scaring off the fish. He threw a tantrum, broke a fishing rod, was arguing with his wife about something. After the failed morning fishing, on the way back to the cottage, they encountered a mountain lion that appeared on the path out of nowhere. When you see wild animals on National Geographic or pictures in the books, you don’t realize how big and ferocious looking they are, until you stumble upon one in person. It was big, the size of a compact two-door sedan, body made out of nothing but muscle. After a few steps a wild animal took towards her, dad, with no hesitation, started screaming and charging towards it, waving his hands and stomping, making a lot of guttural noises mixed in with loud yelling. The vicious mountain lion was startled, dad fended off the scared and hungry beast, luckily she’d never know what could’ve happened if he didn’t react quick, it could’ve been a tragic end to a family trip.
Those were the wild days, people couldn’t just go online and search up all the answers on how to deal with wildlife and stack up on some gear, like repellents that would protect them from potential animals they might run into. Information mostly traveled in a word of mouth fashion, no Google search in sight. Dad stepped up to the plate to defend his family, putting his life on a line, he didn’t need to think about it, he just reacted, did what needed to be done. From that point on she forgave all the little tantrums and cranky moments her dad had, she knew deep down he was the protector, if needed be. She didn’t give much thought to this moment up until now, but right now, being stuck on the boat after God knows what happened with her place of habitat, she was realizing that you can’t take life for granted, you need to appreciate and cherish it, care for the ones around you, as she was holding on tight to her fury pet friend.
Another hour had passed. She was picturing warrior dancers performing a ritual at the foot of the volcano. Honoring the gods in the manner of telling the history of the land through moves done by hands, hips, eyes and tongues. Warriors performing the dance before they will get on their kayaks to row to a neighboring rival island, before the battle will begin, seeking the blessing of the gods, seeking their protection. Crazy eyes, stuck out tongues, garbs adorned with flowers, violence expressed through a language of dance. Torches placed in the soil of the surrounding area, illuminating, casting shadows. Fire given to people by Prometheus at a great cost. Leis placed on the ground after the dance is over in honor of the gods. Raging fire, everconsuming and insatiable, the essence of Pele the Goddess of volcanoes, the creator of the land. History and culture the girl picked up from conversing with the locals over the course of the few years she’d lived in Kauai. How at one point the christians took over and converted the Queen, making her ban hula dance once, deeming it vulgar and offensive. Belief in Pele was seized and forbidden, but yet she reminded the islanders of herself at times by the sudden eruptions, appearing as a woman with white hair and a white dog companion to a passerby as a warning of what’s about to come, the scorching fire will run down the mount.
The sun was almost fully hidden behind the horizon, and right before it was no longer visible, it produced a quick flash of green and disappeared for good. Another thing to add to the list of worries was the cold, with the sun out of the picture, if the wind was to pick up, they could be freezing. Her mind was all over the place. Una was tired, trying her best to lay down and get some sleep. The girl was thinking what do goats dream about? Do they dream about other goats, or humans? Do they remember their dreams?
Memories of the recurring nightmare she had as a kid were starting to surface. In a dream she was on a big ship in the middle of the ocean, with her grandad but no other crew on board. It was like a ghost ship, and granted it looked very scary, the whole vessel seemed to be made out of metal, rusted metal. Metal making sharp clanking noises as the ship moved, sending chills down her spine. It was the night time as they encountered a storm, black waves crashing against the metal, and all she could remember was her grandad yelling that they had to abandon the ship and jump off, that it was too old to weather the storm, but she was too scared to move, frozen in place. Every time as soon as her grandpa jumped from the bow, she would wake up in tears and cold sweat.
The night sky was clear and the stars were shining bright. Everything around her was dark, water mass with no beginning or end, she was extremely disoriented, clueless about how far away from Kauai they were. She saw a shooting star, like a missile they were warned about, raining down like a cosmic droplet, going down somewhere far away, into the ocean. Naturally, she made a wish, a wish for them to be rescued, rescued sooner than later, so they could put all this misery behind them at last, still remaining hopeful to the very end. Meanwhile, they were finishing the granola bar and just a few more sips were left in the water bottle, leaving them with no food or liquid resources.
There was more to it than just life on Earth, she wholeheartedly believed in it, more life forms out there in the universe, light years away. The times she got high, she would think about all the theories and possibilities, alien life forms. Were they way more advanced than humans? Did we live in the simulation created by an alien race, humanity being a pure source of entertainment for them, nothing more, nothing less. Living in the simulation, like a tv show written and directed by a foreign life form, later seasons simply left to chance and randomized. If they were in any shape or form resembling humans, but they shed what we know as humanity, stepping away from selfish emotions and only focusing on what’s better for their race as a whole, would they still enjoy the human drama? It would make for a good tv show, a special catastrophe episode, with the stars as microscopic cameras zoomed in and broadcasting, all lights focused on Earth, watching live 24/7, studying, analyzing, or maybe just enjoying like a reality tv, for shits and giggles, a guilty pleasure during the time when they unwind.
Illuminated by the stars, in a complete darkness of shivering cold, she was hugging on Una and hoping, hoping somebody would come to get them. She reached inside the backpack, hoping to find something else, but there was only a knife left, good for wielding off pirates at this point. She was a fighter, and taking her own life surely was not in the stars for her. Her eyes fixated on a new star each moment, gaze moving, trying to not think about the cold, mind over matter, grey grey matter, faint guitar solo ringing off in the distance, handpicking the strings, the stellar melody, solo of hers. She had no sense of time, no context, she was a neon beast with transparent jellyfish like body, glowing and swimming in the sky, amongst the stars. Traveling at her own pace, slow and steady, going nowhere fast.
She was tired from all the running the whole day, the whole life, exhausted from all the thoughts racing through her head. She was trying her best to fight off sleep, as she could just fall overboard from a sudden wrong movement of the ocean and drown disoriented. She had a baby, her furry friend to take care of, that was by her side throughout this whole journey.
“Miss are you ok?”- were the words she heard repeated several times, directed at her, until she managed to pry open her eyes, with soon to be sunrise approaching giving her a hard time to adjust to the brightness. The man addressing her was in a boat twice the size of hers with orange rim all along the side of it stating U.S. Coast Guard. Her. Calls and prayers were answered, they showed up after all. The men were wearing orange life vests and still repeating the same question.
“I’m fine,” she muttered.
“Emergency line contacted us because they received a call , and as they tracked the initial GPS location from where the call was placed they sent it over to us, we had to do the rest, to locate your vessel from there, which we did by a sheer luck mostly, as you floated pretty far away from the location where the call was originally placed.”
“What happened with the strike, the warning message?” she asked immediately after, coming back to her senses.
“Oh yes, it was a false alarm,” rescuers replied, “somebody made a mistake, pushed the wrong button, there is no threat.”
There are things that you just can’t escape no matter how hard you try, an alert that goes directly to your phone for instance, disrupting the calm and making a huge fuss, ringing the alarm. And sometimes taking the path of less resistance, accepting one’s fate, turns out to be beneficial, instead of trying to go against the grain, impulsively reacting and jumping to conclusions. There’s an old saying that translates to English as “Hurry too much, and you become a laughing stock,” the analog of “haste would make waste.” Taking a deep breath, exhaling, taking another one, letting it out, keep breathing, calm and collected, life goes on, there’s one thing about it. You don’t always need to make it harder for yourself, sometimes you can just go with the flow, like a motorboat with a dead engine, following the direction where the ocean takes it, floating away. Which is the approach that made certain social groups survive historically. Point of the matter is you never know, it’s hard to accurately assess the situation in the heat of the moment.
Ignorance is bliss, yet again. That day lucky were the ones who slept through it all and didn’t even flinch, didn’t find out about this alert thing until later on, didn’t have to go through the commotion of a life or death scenario. Possibly having too much to drink on a Friday night and knocking out at the top of the morning to sleep in, ignoring all the alerts and sirens, unbothered. Only a select few get to change or dictate the history, the vast majority just falls in line.
All in all, surprisingly enough, not much violence occurred in the time between the first and the second alerts, in the face of adversity of that kind everybody went into themselves, self-reflected, thought about their loved ones, reconnected, prayed, found religion, just waited as instructed, didn’t succumb to the potential pandemonium. No looting was done, no crimes were committed, except for a few accidents that left people dead or injured, or a few drug overdoses, the ones who decided to go all out, with the fireworks so to speak.
Jan 14, 2018–08:07AM Saturday — “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.”
The error was corrected 38min later (at 8:45AM), after the first alert was sent out. Caused by an employee pressing the wrong button. Second message read: “There is no missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii. Repeat. False Alarm.”
