Ocean: The Awakening (13 page)

Chapter 25

Swimming underwater, Kimo thought back to when he was a newborn, and recalled seeing small, brightly colored fish all around him, in whichever direction he chose to reach out. In those early moments following his unusual birth, the entire ocean had been like his baby crib, except instead of mobiles hanging over his head with toy fish dangling on them, he had the real things, living creatures for companions.

As he grew, they were his playmates, and his teachers. They taught him how to survive in the water, where to obtain food and how to elude predators, though it soon became apparent that no predator would bother him. There were even creatures of the deep who came up to the humanoid child, and showed him the way down to the central domain of Moanna, the Goddess of the Sea.

Kimo was not going to dive deep this afternoon, and instead he swam underwater just beneath the sparkling surface of the sea, where bright tropical sunlight gave the water the loveliest, most pleasing shades of blue. Here, swimming with sharks, reef fish, turtles, and jellyfish, he thought there must be as many shades of blue in the ocean as there were shades of green on the land. Millions and millions of delightful hues, a cornucopia that filled his visual senses to the brim.

Having just left Alicia at the general store, he felt very bad about breaking up with her, but it had been necessary; he needed to focus on other things. Before meeting with her and then coming here to swim, Kimo had made his customary arrangements with Billie Hama to run the fruit stand, and with his mother to care for his father. For his own sense of well-being, his own mental balance, Kimo needed to spend time in the water as much he could, especially when he was under stress. The immersion time centered him emotionally, and made him more prepared to face the serious challenges of his life and family.

Normally he felt calmer in the sea than on the land, but not today. The sense of timelessness and eternity he usually felt in the water was tainted, overshadowed by the problems of its inhabitants. For the first time, he worried that life in the ocean might not go on forever, and perhaps not much longer at all, due to human interference and destruction.

On the land, things seemed out of control too, because his father might only have a few days left to live. With the old man in a coma, and Kimo’s vow to shut down the Hawaiian beaches if he could, he did not have time for a relationship with Alicia, or anyone else. Even so, he did not regret asking her out. The brief moments they’d shared had been sweet, even the last ones earlier today, when he had hardly been able to tear himself away from her. She’d looked so sad when he left her at the table, mirroring the pain in his own heart.

Now Kimo stopped swimming forward, but remained underwater. Looking around, he saw spectacular striped moorish idols, green parrotfish, yellow-and-black butterflyfish, multi-hued reef triggerfish, and jaunty-looking bandit angelfish, along with various turtles and sharks, and swordfish and sawfish, as well as numerous other species. Motioning with his arms and sending mental impulses through the molecular connection he had with these creatures in the water, he tried to tell them to divide up into their own species. Seeing four orangespine unicornfish near him, black with orange and yellow markings, he herded them together and then did the same with three hawksbill turtles, trying to let them all know what he wanted. When the small groupings tried to split up, he quickly forced them back together by species, moving into their midst and drawing them around him.

This was something he had never attempted before, trying to communicate in such a manner with species other than jetfish and bubblefish, actually giving them instructions instead of just letting them follow him around. Gently, he kept regrouping them by their own kind, but they would only stay together for a few minutes at a time.

He sensed the collective indecision of the marine animals, saw their confusion as they swam about frenetically and kept breaking formation. Then an idea occurred to him, and he tried swimming closer to the various species, occasionally stroking the sides of the creatures gently as he regrouped them, and pressing his face against them while making soft, melodic humming sounds in the water—similar to the way he interacted with jetfish and bubblefish. Gradually, he noticed that the animals around him were swimming slower, and as they grew calmer they were better able to understand what he wanted.

The turtles and butterflyfish were the first to understand his commands, then the triggerfish, the unicornfish, and the sawfish—and then all of the other species. As he spent time with them, he began to feel a deeper connection and a strong sense of their collective assent, which surprised and delighted him. With his success, more fish and other marine creatures began to join them, and they fell quickly into the correct groups. Some of the species (including the dolphins) even made response tones to him, in apparent attempts to mimic the melodic sounds he was making.

After four hours, Kimo looked around and saw all of the animals gathered according to their species, great masses of spectacular color in all directions, so that each species was like a single organism. He counted thirty-seven different types of sea creatures around him, amounting to thousands of individuals.

From childhood, Kimo had always flowed with the fish and other living things of the sea, but he wanted it to be different now. With a deliberate motion, he swam forcefully into the midst of a school of bullethead parrotfish, and this time he went to the far perimeter and beyond, swimming as fast as he could. Looking back, he saw the parrotfish massing behind him, and as he led these fish in a wide, graceful arc he saw other schools of fish and groupings of creatures following as well, no longer grouping around him loosely as they had before, and this time remaining in their own pods and schools as they followed him—exactly as he wanted them to do.

Kimo swam out to sea with them and then back toward shore, directing the creatures instead of flowing with them—and with the exception of a few individuals who broke away, they all understood, and did as he wanted.

Time melted away as Kimo performed one experiment after another, determining what the aquatic animals would do for him, and how to get them to perform certain tasks. He came up with hand signals for specific tasks, and the creatures learned quickly. There seemed to be no limit to the possibilities….

After a tortuous half hour in which she waited for Kimo to resurface, Alicia had been unable to stand it any longer, and had run back to Wanaao Town to notify the police, demanding that they institute a search and rescue effort.

At the small police station, the dispatch officer had been hesitant. A narrow-faced sergeant, he’d grinned and said, “Don’t worry about Kimo. He swims better than the fish in the sea. You haven’t lived here long enough to know that.”

“I know when a man stays underwater too long!” she’d said, near hysteria. “I watched him swim away from shore and go under. He never came back up!”

The officer frowned, didn’t say anything.

“I spoke with Kimo before he went in the water,” she said, “and he was despondent about his father, who is terminally ill and in a coma. I’m very worried about his decision-making. Can’t you do something?”

“All right, lady, we’ll send somebody out.”

By late afternoon the rescue team had been mobilized, a volunteer squad of firefighters, fishermen, and lifeguards. For hours, Alicia stood on the end of the public dock with binoculars, looking anxiously back across the sea toward the mouth of Crimson Cove, watching power boats and a helicopter as they searched.

By the time the sun was beginning to set, there was still no sign of him, and Alicia despaired. A short while later, when darkness was falling, she received word that Kimo had been spotted swimming toward Wanaao Town, and he’d been taken aboard a trawler.

Through the binoculars, she saw a fishing boat heading toward her, with its running lights on. As the craft drew closer, in light cast from the dock she saw Kimo step out of the cabin, with a towel draped around him.

When he disembarked onto the weathered dock, she scolded him. “You shouldn’t have made everyone worry,” she said, feeling the tears of anger and relief welling in her eyes.

He looked at her closely, but kept his distance. “You shouldn’t have worried. I’m safer in the ocean than on the land.”

“I saw you go under and you didn’t come back up.”

His gaze narrowed. “Did you follow me?”

She nodded. “I was at the cove, and saw you swim out to deeper water, with sharks, turtles, and other creatures all around you.”

“You just lost sight of me beyond the waves,” he said.

“Maybe, but I’m not going to lose sight of you again.” She took his hand firmly and led him back to her car.

“I need to get over to the hospital and check on my father,” he said. “It’s not far. I can walk.”

“I’ll get you there faster,” she said, as she opened the driver’s door and stood there for a moment, looking at him intensely.

Kimo nodded, then slid into the passenger seat, saying, “I’m really sorry about what I said to you. I, I … you’re a wonderful person, and deserve better than what I–“

“Don’t try to come at it from a different direction and rationalize us being apart,” she said as she started the car. “I want to help you through your troubles. I want to be there for you.”

His eyes misted as he looked at her.

When the main hospital building came into view through the windshield, a single-story structure on a gentle, grassy slope, Kimo had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. During the two years of his father’s illness, he’d hated seeing the once-robust man’s flagging health, and the terrible coma he’d slipped into, as if he could no longer consciously face the painful ravages of his body, and wanted to just slip away.

As he walked into the hospital waiting room, Ealani Pohaku rose from one of the chairs, her expression dismal. The large woman’s eyes were red and moist, and her gaze lingered on Alicia before settling on Kimo. “Your father is gone,” she said, nodding toward the corridor, where he’d had a room.

Kimo slumped to his knees, sobbing. Everything became a fog around him—the consoling voices of women with his mother, their gentle touches on his shoulders and face, their sadness and tears. Even Alicia was crying, though she’d never met Tiny.

Finally, his emotions raw, Kimo looked up and focused on Alicia’s oval face, her tender blue, tear-filled eyes. His mother stood behind her, and was letting the young woman position herself closest to him. Ealani sensed things about people; she must be sensing the goodness in Alicia, her compassion and deep concern for Kimo.

“This isn’t much of a second date, is it?” he said to her, and then he broke down again.

She met his gaze, gave him a gentle, reassuring smile, one that told him she would do everything possible to help him through this terrible time.

When Kimo finally composed himself he stood and said to his mother, “I want to see him now.”

“I’ll wait here,” Alicia said.