Stories (2011) (104 page)

All the early night and into the midnight hour, the junk
washed up, and then, a minute past one, when the sea rolled out and took its
laundry soap waves with it, a wad of seaweed from which clinging water dripped
like shiny pearls, moved. It moved and it stood up and the shiny pearls of
water rolled over the seaweed, and the sewage clung tight and the thing took
shape, and the shape was that of a man, featureless and dark and loose as the
wind.

The seaweed and sewage man, gone shiny from the pearl drops
of sea foam, walked toward town, and in the town it heard the clang and clatter
of automobiles out on the brightly lit street, and it saw the street from its
position in a dark alley, watched the cars zoom by and heard the people shout,
and it chose to stick to the dark.

It went along the dark alley and turned down an even more
narrow and darker alley, and walked squishing along that path until it came to
the back of a theater where an old man with a harmonica and a worn-out hat sat
on a flattened cardboard box and played a bluesy tune until he saw the thing
from the ocean shuffle up.

The thing twisted its head when the music stopped, stood
over the man, reached out and took the hat from the man's head and put it on
its own. Startled, the man stood, and when he did, the thing from the ocean
snatched his harmonica. The man broke and ran.

The thing put the harmonica in its mouth and blew, and out
came a toneless sound, and then it blew again, and it was a better sound this
time; it was the crash of the sea and the howl of the wind. It started walking
away, blowing a tune, moving its body to a boogie-woogie rhythm and a two-step
slide, the moves belying the sound coming from the instrument, but soon sound
and body fell in line, swaying to the music, blowing harder, blowing wilder.
The notes swept through the city like bats in flight.

And out into the light went the thing from the ocean, and it
played and it played, and the sound was so loud cars slammed together and
people quit yelling, and pretty soon they were lining up behind the thing from
the ocean, and the thing played even louder, and those that fell in line behind
it moved as it moved, with a boogie-woogie rhythm and a two-step slide.

Those who could not walk pushed the wheels of their wheel
chairs, or gave their electric throttles all the juice, and there were even
cripples in alleyways who but minutes before had been begging for money, who
bounced along on crutches, and there were some without crutches, and they began
to crawl, and the dogs and the cats in the town followed suit, and soon all
that was left in the town were those who could not move at all, the infants in
their cribs, the terminally sick, and the deaf who couldn't hear the tune, and
the thing from the ocean went on along and all of the townspeople managed
after.

It went out of the town and down to the shore, and over the
rocks and into the sea, and with its head above water, it rode the waves out,
still playing its tune, and the people and animals from the town went in after,
and it took hours for them to enter the ocean and go under and drown, but still
the head of the thing from the sea bobbed above the waves and the strange music
wailed, and soon all that had come from the town were drowned. They washed up
on the beach and on the rocks, water swollen, or rock cut, and lay there in the
same way that the garbage from the sea had lain.

And finally the thing from the sea was way out now and there
was just the faint sound of the music it played, and in the houses the infants
who had been left could hear it, and they didn't cry as the music played, and
even those who could not move, and those in comas, heard or felt the music and
were stirred internally. Only the deaf were immune. And then the music ceased.

The thing from the sea had come apart from the blast of the
waves and had been spread throughout the great, deep waters, and some of the
thing would wash up on the beach, and some of it would be carried far out to
sea, and the harmonica sunk toward the bottom and was swallowed by a large fish
thinking it was prey.

And in the town the infants died of starvation, and so did
the sick ones who could not move, and the deaf, confused, ran away, and the
lights of the town blared on through day and night and in some stores canned
music played and TVs in houses talked, and so it would be for a very long time.

High up, on the edge of the cliff, green wings strained,
gathered the wind and held it. But the breeze-bloated device did not lift the
girl who wore it aloft. Two men, one old, one young, stood on either side of
her, held her, served as an anchor for her lithe, brown body. They were her
father and brother.

"Will I fly like a bird, father?" the young girl
asked. Her voice was weak with fear. The wind seemed to clutch the words from
her mouth and toss them out over the glistening green land of Oahu.

"No," her father said, "you will not fly like
a bird and you must not try. Do not flap the wings. Let the wind rule and take
you where it wants you to go. Glide. Do you understand?"

"Yes father," she said, "I understand."

"Good. Now tell me one more time what you know."

"I know all the songs of our people. I know all the
hulas. I know where we lived and how it was when we lived our own way and were
not controlled by others. I know all of this. I know of all the things before
the coming of Kamehameha."

"You are the last of us, daughter. You are the last of
our hope. I have long expected this day, dreamed once that we would be driven
here and forced over the side, down to death on the rocks. But in the dream we
did not scream, and we will not scream this day."

"And the bird, father," the young boy said.

"Yes, and there was a great bird in the sky, green and
brown, and I came to understand what it meant. This day could not be avoided,
but there was still hope for our people. That is why I built the wings and
taught you all these things, some are things that women have never been taught
before."

"But maybe," the young girl said, "it was
only a bird in your dream-a real bird."

The old man shook his head. "No."

"Perhaps it was my brother?"

"No. You are the lightest, you are our hope. If the
wings bear anyone, it is you, the daughter of the king."

"Maybe we will win this day and there will be no
need."

The old man smiled grimly. "Then you will not fly and
things will be as they were, but I do not expect that. The time of our people
has come to an end, but you will carry our thoughts, our dreams, our hopes with
you."

The young girl’s long black hair whipped in the wind.
"Oh father, let me die with you. I do not want to be the only one left,
the only one of us still alive."

"While you live," her brother said softly,
"while you hold all the old songs and stories to your heart, we all live
and we will never die. Somehow, someway, you must pass these things on."

"But there are none left to pass them to," the
young girl said.

"The war will end this day," her father said.
"You must make a boat in the manner I have taught you, sail to one of the
other islands and wait until the hate and fear have died. Then return. You will
find a young man among them, one too young to know their hate, and he will give
you children and you will teach them the ways of our people. Not so that these
things will rule again, for that time is passed, but so that the memory of us
will not die."

"Hold me," she said.

Brother and father pulled closer.

Down below, moving up toward the cliff, came the sound of
battle, the cries of men, the smashing of clubs against clubs and clubs against
flesh.

"These wings," the old man said, "they will
make you a goddess in the sun. You will soar over the valley and turn with the
wind toward the sea, and down there, far from them, you can hide."

"Yes father." The wind strained at the wings,
tried to lift the girl up.

"Lift the wings," her father said.

She did as he asked.

The sound of yelling warriors was very close.

From where they stood, the trio could see a fine line of
brown warriors falling back, being forced toward the edge of the cliff.

"Soon," the old man said, "we go over the
cliff with the others."

"But not before we fight," said the boy. He looked
into the face of his sister. "You are the last of the hopeful. Carry our
hope far and wide."

Tears were in her eyes. "I will."

The warriors were very close now. You could smell the sweat
of battle, feel the heat of hate and anger.

"Ride the wind," the old man said.

She turned to look out over the beautiful green valley. She
spread the wings. The wind billowed them.

"You must go now," her brother said.

"Our hopes go with you," her father said.

And they released her into the wind.

It was a powerful wind. It caught the great green wings and
pulled her up and out over the valley. For a moment her father and brother
watched, then, picking up their war clubs, they turned to join the last of the
battle.

A moment later, along with the rest of the warriors, the old
man, who was known to his people as King Kalanikupule, went over the cliff and
down into the green valley without a scream.

And moving out over the valley, slave to the wind, went his
daughter.

Kamehameha, the sweat and blood of war coating his body,
watched her soar. Clubs were tossed at her, but all fell short.

The wind whipped her up high again, and then seemed to let
go.

She plummeted like a stone.

But only for a moment, an updraft caught her, took her up
again, and even as the victorious forces of Kamehameha stood on the cliff’s
edge and watched in awe, the slim brown girl glided down and over the tree
tops, around their edge toward the shore line, shining in the sun like a great,
green and brown bird before coasting behind tall trees and out of sight.

On the wind, for a brief instant, there floated the sound of
her sweet, hopeful laughter.

The psychiatrist wore blue, the color of Merguson’s mood.

"Mr.... uh?" the psychiatrist asked.

"Merguson. Floyd Merguson."

"Sure, Mr...."

"Merguson."

"Right. Come into the office."

It was a sleek office full of sleek black chairs the texture
of a lizard’s underbelly. The walls were decorated with paintings of explosive
color; a metal-drip sculpture resided on the large walnut desk. And there was
the couch, of course, just like in the movies. It was a chocolate-brown with
throw-pillows at each end. It looked as if you could drift down into it and
disappear in its softness.

They sat in chairs, however. The psychiatrist on his side of
the desk, Merguson on the client’s side. The psychiatrist was a youngish man
with a fine touch of premature white at the temples. He looked every inch the
intelligent professional. "Now" the psychiatrist said, "what
exactly is your problem?"

Merguson fiddled his fingers, licked his lips, and looked
away.

"Come on, now. You came here for help, so let’s get
started."

"Well," Merguson said cautiously. "No one
takes me seriously."

"Tell me about it."

"No one listens to me. I can’t take it anymore. Not
another moment. I feel like I’m going to explode if I don’t get help. Sometimes
I just want to yell out,
Listen to me!
"

Merguson leaned forward and said confidentially,
"Actually, I think it’s a disease. Yeah, I know how that sounds, but I
believe it is, and I believe I’m approaching the terminal stage of the illness.
I got this theory that there are people others don’t notice, that they’re
almost invisible. There’s just something genetically wrong with them that
causes them to go unnoticed. Like a little clock that ticks inside them, and
the closer it gets to the hour hand the more unnoticed these people become.

"I’ve always had the problem of being shy and
introverted–and that’s the first sign of the disease. You either shake it early
or you don’t. If you don’t, it just grows like cancer and consumes you. With me
the problem gets worse every year, and lately by the moment.

"My wife, she used to tell me it’s all in my head, but
lately she doesn’t bother. But let me start at the first, when I finally
decided I was ill, that the illness was getting worse and that it wasn’t just
in my head, not some sort of complex.

"Just last week I went to the butcher, the butcher I
been going to for ten years. We were never chummy, no one has ever been chummy
to me but my wife, and she married me for my money. I was at least visible
then; I mean you had to go to at least some effort to ignore me, but my God,
it’s gotten worse...

"I’m off the track. I went to the butcher, asked him
for some choice cuts of meat. Another man comes in while I’m talking to him and
asks for a pound of hamburger. Talks right over me, mind you. What happens? You
guessed it. The butcher starts shooting the breeze with the guy, wraps up a
pound of hamburger and hands it over to him!

"I ask him about my order and he says, ‘Oh, I
forgot.’"

Merguson lit a cigarette and held it between unsteady
fingers after a long deep puff. "I tell you, he waited on three other
people before he finally got to me, and then he got my order wrong, and I must
have told him three times, at least.

"It’s more than I can stand, Doc. Day after day people
not noticing me, and it’s getting worse all the time. Yesterday I went to a
movie and I asked for a ticket and it happened. I mean I went out completely,
went transparent, invisible. I mean completely. This was the first time. The
guy just sits there behind the glass, like he’s looking right through me. I
asked him for a ticket again. Nothing. I was angry, I’ll tell you. I just
walked right on toward the door. Things had been getting me down bad enough
without not being about to take off and go to a movie and relax. I thought I’d
show him. Just walk right in. Then they’d sell me a ticket.