Submission for The Bones of Blood Work: “Kāneʻohe Town”

Hilo Bay, anno Domini 2546

        “You know about the nuclear king tide that just hit Hilo Bay?”

        “No Puna, no one ever told us.” I replied.

        “As the tide receded, it left masses of dead fish on the shore. People turned up with baskets and took every scale and bone of fish home. Most of them died within a few days.”

I had finally reached this fabled bay, the bay that was hit twice, way back in the twentieth century by two destructive tsunamis. Today, in 2546, the waves sounded calm, gently lapping up on the soft sand just reaching my toes. The warm breeze embraced my back, still damp from the passing shower.

What my vision fails to provide, my other senses will help guide me, hopefully, to the other side of the bay. I walked very slowly, treading lightly on soft bits of shell and plastic, lots of varying textures of plastic. A soft, bulgy orb of a warm, gel-filled substance burst under my big toe, then I stepped on the rest of its body, slimy and scaly, its fins and tail, scratchy. The stench assaulted my broad nostrils.

“Puna! Where did you go? How much farther?”

No answer, just the gentle sound of the waves. I carried on along the bay, eventually feeling the wind direction change, maybe this is where it bends, forming the wide, crescent shape. I still couldn’t get away from the stench of decaying fish, the popping sounds of gas being released from their dying, scaly bodies. They must be strewn from end to end of the shoreline.

“Puna! Where the hell are you?”

Again, silence. A few steps away, I walked right into a huge piece of wood. I bent over, grasping onto it for support. Was it a piece of driftwood? The ruins of a fishing boat? Wet coconuts were floating around it, making me hungry, making me think of poisson cru. Let me think, raw fish, cubed, poke style, coconut milk, onions, sweet, fragrant lime juice.

The waves bring more plastic, wrapping around and entangling my swollen ankles.

So this is where I wanted to be, where I always thought I wanted to be; the place other Uamau people shared in their nightly campfire stories. I’ve finally made it here.

I sat on the damp sand, sobbing uncontrollably.