Wherever I look, wherever I go, there’s the tree. Its presence speaks to me, yet robs me of any peace. It says, Amira, climb me, but I know this is a lie. I try and ignore it, oh, but some days I want to take my little firewood axe and start at the base of that tree, and hack away. It would take much time, maybe weeks of my life, to cut through the trunk with this little axe. My hands would be bloody and blistered, but I wouldn’t stop. People would come by and say, Amira, sister, what is your issue? What has that tree ever done to you? But I would continue my attack, wiping the sweat from my brow, until that day when the tree wakes up and groans and shivers and starts to move and I can scream, Amira, you have won! as that tree, my tree, makes its final journey, and hits the ground, tastes the red dirt that the rest of us live with. No longer above us all, now, dry and dying and covered in dust.

And I would throw down that axe, fall onto my knees, and place my bloody, blistered hands on the trunk and raise my head up to the sky. My howl would shake the branches of the bushes and smaller trees for miles around, and they would tremble at Amira and her axe, and I would wail at my loss and at my victory.

For my tree was dead.

I do not recall much of what was home. I do not know my family. I do not know of my place or my customs. I do not know my name. Now, I am only Boy. But I am certain I must have had a name at one time. I am sure I was loved enough, once, to have been named. My memories are few of before, and of what I do remember I keep precious, hidden, for fear of it being used up and lost, mixed into my life now.

Then, at a time, I may remember a little something that seems a blessing coming to me. A surprise; a smell, a color, a taste. Then, suddenly, comes a remembering and I can be happy. I can keep it inside and in secret and let it blossom like a lotus flower rising from the mud of a dirty, forgotten pool. A flower that only I can see. It can say to me, whisper softly in my ear – “See, you have a before, you have something that is only yours, you have a place.”

And then, for a moment, I am happy. I can smile. Because, for a moment, I am.

The nights are cold. And I am cold too.

I lay, quietly, in the dark, breathing slowly, softly. And, even though I am cold, painfully cold, I do not move. I am still, listening, waiting, looking.

In this place of brick and stone, of loneliness and death, I wait and I remember. I hope for the whiteness, the flashes that mean love, care and guardianship, for in these moments I am carefree. But in the night, when all has gone quiet, I fear the redness. I worry that it will back come to me. Because even though I am cold, I know that the cold is not the thing I need to fear.

And, too sad to sleep, I simply wait until morning. At night, all I can do is remember how life was before everything became red; think of the happy days before the redness.

Kalani

Hawaii, 1794

You say you want to hear this story.

Then, I will tell it.

You say you want to understand.

Then, I will help you.

You say you want to know.

Then, I will show you.

I should see Kane dancing in the clouds and rain, should feel Lano in the warm breezes, but I do not. I cannot, any longer.

All I can sense is Kanaloa, the god of death, in this now, in these pasts, in my future.

So, what is it? What have I figured out? I know I am sometimes happy, but more often unhappy. Sometimes angry, sometimes uncontrollably angry. I’ve done some things that when I am calm, I know are crazy.

And then, I’ve done some things that I know are crazy but I don’t feel bad about and actually still feel OK about (secretly).

But, as often happens, people say it’s too much, too extreme. I’m too much.