I did not understand my atali'i. He would disappear from me for days, running into the jungle, sleeping in the Garden of the Gods. At first, I would cry for him and search. I would say that I needed my son to help me make the net. No one makes a fishing net alone. But he would not come back when I called.
Some days later, he would return, coming up the beach. Always something new. He would have been playing with lava and burned his arm. Or chasing a wild pig and been unlucky enough to catch him. I thought, then, that he was a bad son, leaving his mother alone... getting hurt when I could not help him.
But he always came back glowing. There was something in the island that filled him, taught him, loved him. I look back now and I think that Lanai and my little Eric shared agaga. Shared a soul.
He grew up quickly, and as he grew, roamed the island even more. I believe that he has seen every rock twice. And every time I saw him, he looked bigger, stronger. He could have been a chief's son. But it was not his strength that made me believe. It was his magic.
Imagine your son brings you a dead bird and says, Mama, I need a cage. He'll wreck the house when he wakes up.
I stared at him and wondered if I had let him down in letting him wander. But I saw. Even these old eyes still see. He spoke to the little body like a charmer, sweetly cooing at it to breathe. Just try, little one!
I will swear to you that the warm winds blew stronger, the waves tumbled harder, and Pele stretched her feet. And I watched my little boy revive the dead with his voice. Lanai had answered him.
And I think, when he lived out in the palms, he answered her.
The older my atali'i got, the stronger his body and agaga became. Towns across the island reported a jungle spirit who found lost tourists and missing children. And he would stop criminals with a word if he could, a hand if need be.
Mothers are proud when their sons take a bride. My Eric took an island; and loved its people as his own.
But he did not stay. When the aliens came, they did not come to the most remote place in the world. We were safe because we were insignificant. But my son did not believe that isolation would be enough. He saw the rikti on the news and decided that the island meant nothing if the world fell.
He asked Lanai for help. Stood on the black beach with handfuls of sand and sang to her in our language. The waves came to his feet. His knees. His waist.
She swallowed him up. My baby!
The wind blew west to east that day. And Pele spit fire in joy! And my Eric... your... Kona, moved over half the ocean to find himself washed on the warring mainland shore.
Eric was... ...
I did not understand my atali'i. He would disappear from me for days, running into the jungle, sleeping in the Garden of the Gods. At first, I would cry for him and search. I would say that I needed my son to help me make the net. No one makes a fishing net alone. But he would not come back when I called.
Some days later, he would return, coming up the beach. Always something new. He would have been playing with lava and burned his arm. Or chasing a wild pig and been unlucky enough to catch him. I thought, then, that he was a bad son, leaving his mother alone... getting hurt when I could not help him.
But he always came back glowing. There was something in the island that filled him, taught him, loved him. I look back now and I think that Lanai and my little Eric shared agaga. Shared a soul.
He grew up quickly, and as he grew, roamed the island even more. I believe that he has seen every rock twice. And every time I saw him, he looked bigger, stronger. He could have been a chief's son. But it was not his strength that made me believe. It was his magic.
Imagine your son brings you a dead bird and says, Mama, I need a cage. He'll wreck the house when he wakes up.
I stared at him and wondered if I had let him down in letting him wander. But I saw. Even these old eyes still see. He spoke to the little body like a charmer, sweetly cooing at it to breathe. Just try, little one!
I will swear to you that the warm winds blew stronger, the waves tumbled harder, and Pele stretched her feet. And I watched my little boy revive the dead with his voice. Lanai had answered him.
And I think, when he lived out in the palms, he answered her.
The older my atali'i got, the stronger his body and agaga became. Towns across the island reported a jungle spirit who found lost tourists and missing children. And he would stop criminals with a word if he could, a hand if need be.
Mothers are proud when their sons take a bride. My Eric took an island; and loved its people as his own.
But he did not stay. When the aliens came, they did not come to the most remote place in the world. We were safe because we were insignificant. But my son did not believe that isolation would be enough. He saw the rikti on the news and decided that the island meant nothing if the world fell.
He asked Lanai for help. Stood on the black beach with handfuls of sand and sang to her in our language. The waves came to his feet. His knees. His waist.
She swallowed him up. My baby!
The wind blew west to east that day. And Pele spit fire in joy! And my Eric... your... Kona, moved over half the ocean to find himself washed on the warring mainland shore.