Authors: Everett Peacock
Yes,
Hawaii could destroy and create but it never snuck up on you, it
never surprised the observant.
Star
knew all this. The history was clear. Yet her history was just as
clear in her mind; the history she would maintain, the history she
intended to live, here at her home by the sea.
It
wasn't that she was fearless, no, not that at all. Hurricanes,
tsunami, floods, earthquakes, lava. They all owned a little piece of
her nightmares. It wasn't that she was crazy, she knew the risks and
had balanced them with her pride.
Star
was going to make her stand here, among the palms and the clear
pools, the black rocks and the blue ocean. She was going to use all
of her heart to do as her hippie mom had always told her, to create
her own reality. And, if that didn't work, she would evacuate by
sea.
Janet
had slept the entire afternoon before, through the night and was only
now just stirring two hours after sunrise. Star watched her like a
mother might her hung-over teenage daughter, with a touch of contempt
floating atop a large pool of compassion.
Despite
her faults, Star found Janet a companion who was willing to share
both her dreams and her fears, and most importantly, her papayas.
~~~
Alice
felt like a college girl again. She was all infatuated with a new
guy and immersed in a big science challenge, all at once! What could
be more perfect?
“
Nothing,
that's what,” she thought to herself, happily typing queries
into her magma projection software.
Twenty-two
million cubic meters was a lot of anything. It could, she quickly
deduced, cover the entire island of Manhattan ten inches thick. Five
inches of coverage had just disappeared into the underground lava
tube system and was heading for Kapoho, again.
She
turned to look for Jack, she needed an observation of Halema'uma'u.
And she wouldn't mind just looking at him a moment. It had been a
while since she had felt like this. His hair, she daydreamed, was
long enough for her to fill both of her hands. Shaking that thought
off, she returned to the task at hand, without the hair.
“
Jack?”
she called, walking into the break room.
Jack
looked up from his prepackaged ham sandwich, then quickly to his left
to see if anyone else was in the room with him. Besides Alice there
were two others, reading a paper. He dropped his initial thought.
“
Yes,
Ms. Alice?”
She
stood askance, one hand on her hip, the other up to her chin.
“
I
need something from you, right away.”
Jack
stood up, watching her like a cat.
“
Yes,
I need it right now,” Alice said, getting the attention of the
two others in the room.
Jack
was a little surprised she was talking like this in front of others,
but still managed to smile.
“
Am
I the man to give it to you?”
She
nodded slowly.
“
Oh
yes, yes, you are. I need a volume reading on Halema'uma'u big boy.”
Jack
grinned broadly. He looked to the two newspaper readers, one of them
smiling and then returning to his paper.
“
Well
then. I shall give it to you right away.” He picked up his
sandwich and walked around the table.
Alice
immediately turned and went out the door. She looked back over her
shoulder as he followed her into the hallway. That man, she said to
herself, was going to make her job worth every penny they should be
paying her above what they actually were.
Jack
practically ran to the laser room to retrieve what he needed and then
in a moment was in the observation room where he and Larry had
watched the hikers that night.
The
crater was obscured again with massive amounts of plume, and thus he
would indeed need his laser observer. With this, he could fire
toward the pit and get a reading about the level of lava.
Lining
up his view finder Jack pressed the trigger and immediately got a
return.
“
That
can't be right,” he shook his head, putting his eye back to the
viewfinder and firing another laser shot.
“
What
the heck?” The answer was the same. He thought he might
actually be shooting at the rim by accident and not to the middle of
the pit. He calibrated it on a known distance marker rangers had
setup for just such a purpose.
For
the third time he picked his point as the center of Halema'uma'u and
squeezed the trigger.
“
Holy
shit,” he whispered to himself after seeing the same answer for
a third time.
Quickly,
he got on the phone to Alice.
“
Yes,
big guy?” she answered.
“
Alice.”
She
hesitated a moment, catching something in the tone of his voice.
“What, Jack? What is it?”
“
Alice,
Halema'uma'u is full! Again!”
~~~
The
tide and winds had done a great job of clearing the debris out of
Champagne pools. Janet and Star luxuriated in its cool clearness as
the noon tropical sun did its best to melt them. Impossible as that
was, with them dunking their heads under water every few minutes, the
sun was relentless. And, so was the cinder cone two miles away.
Star
could hear it now. Hissing and spitting and other obscene sounds the
jungle or the beach was never supposed to bear. Fortunately the
trade winds were keeping the fumes and plume behind them, pushing the
great clouds away from the coast.
They
both seemed adept at ignoring the problem. Wally called them twice a
day from the boats offshore, begging Star to come with him, to the
safety of the sea. Neither Star nor Janet could leave, despite the
ominous volcano. Star told Wally she would wait it out here, giving
her strength to the land, and taking strength from it. But, she did
find it extremely comforting that he could swoop in and rescue her if
the lava got too close.
Both
women luxuriated in a splendorous denial. Taking long walks along
the beach, looking for shells and smooth stones kept their minds off
the unimaginable. It was however getting more difficult to ignore it
all.
The
ground was constantly rumbling softly under their feet, the fishermen
were still anchored in the deep water a half mile out and the pools
were completely empty of tourists, locals and for some strange reason
even the turtles. Paradise seemed under siege and its only
defenders, two women of undetermined fortitude were unprepared for
such a battle.
It
was a peaceful scene on the surface. Both Star and Janet were
singing old hippie love songs, eating papaya and coconuts. Star had
found some old chocolate chip cookies she had stashed for special
occasions. Swinging in their own hammocks under the deepening blue
of a late afternoon they finally discussed the volcano, like they
might an old boyfriend.
“
You
know,” Star said, chewing softly on the sweet chocolate dough.
“I've dated worse.”
Janet
laughed out loud. “Really? Worse than hot tempered, blowing
his top, pissing everyone off around him?”
“
Well,
maybe similar,” Star pushed her foot along the cool sand under
the tall coconut palms so she could swing a little higher.
“Certainly some with about as much hot air and definitely
several with just as toxic of breath!”
Janet
giggled like a little girl. “And that complexion! Seriously!”
Star
enjoyed her cookie for another moment thinking of more insults.
“
And,
I've dated a few, handsome types, even beautiful, that thought that
once you fell for them, you know, totally in love, when you became
dependent on them, then they could do as they please...”
“
Yeah,
bastards,” Janet agreed.
Star
continued. “They could just up and destroy it all, lay waste
to everything good around you, and then act like I've should have
known better.”
Janet
could see that Star was getting upset, that her eyes were closed as
she swung lightly in the hammock. She was squeezing them tightly
shut.
Janet
swung around to let her feet hang out the side of her hammock and
stopped swinging. “Star,” she tried to say but saw her
friend now crying harder. She stood and went over to her, putting
her hand on the still swinging hammock. “I feel lucky, for
you. I feel you will be lucky here.”
Janet
looked around for a moment. It was indeed the most beautiful place
she had ever been, and it wasn't just the postcard qualities that
abounded everywhere. It was the mana, the feeling in the shadows of
the palms, the soft whispers of the gentle breezes and the constant
singing of the ocean. It was manifested most obviously in this older
woman who had come to her rescue on the side of a rainy road.
“
Star,
you always say the volcano must destroy in order to create.”
She lightly stroked the hair of her still crying friend. “But,
why would it destroy what it has worked so hard to create?”
Janet looked across the bay, sparkling in the late afternoon sun.
“This place, this wonderful, wonderful place has created you.
This island has spun you from the sand, from the sky and sea into its
loving expression. You are, my friend, the very thing paradise must
breathe through.” Janet looked out at the first star of the
evening, shimmering in the clear tropical air. “Without you,
here in your cove of palms and hammocks, and chocolate chip cookies
the world would be just another rock in the darkness of space.”
Star
opened her watery eyes in a great big smile. “That's beautiful
Jimmie. Thank you.” She wiped her tears as best she could
with her paisley shirt. “I've never heard you speak so …
I don't know, so, well sweetly.”
Janet
dropped her head to watch her own toes flex in the sand, embarrassed
a bit by her eloquence.
“
It
just felt,” she wondered how to explain it. Looking up she
blinked and added “It just felt like my heart had it to say.”
She stood up and walked slowly back to her own hammock. Sitting
back down, she got quiet a moment, all the while staring at the ocean
beyond.
“
I
feel like I have destroyed too, Star. But for me, I have created
nothing.”
“
Oh
Jimmie, don't do that,” Star said gently, sitting up herself
now. “Don't go there now, it's too soon.”
Janet
pushed herself against the sand and lifted her feet so she could
swing. “I know, I know. But, it's true, and it won't be any
less true in a month. Or a year.”