LIFE IS PARABOLIC

"Sometimes the urgency of our hunger blinds us to the fact that we are already at the Feast." -John O'Donohue

"I know you didn't bring me out here to drown. So, why am I ten feet under and upside down? Barely surviving has become my purpose, 'cuz I'm so used to living underneath the surface. If I could just see You, everything would be all right. If I'd see You, my darkness would turn to light."- "Storm" Lifehouse

The man's eyes felt as if a rusty sword was piercing them through rough sandpaper--to close them was almost as painful as to force them to stay open.  He spat a dehydrated mouthful of saltwater back into the sea, and doggy-paddled his spasm-wrecked arms toward where he supposed the island to be... If only he'd taken a larger life vest... If only he hadn't insisted on water-skiing... If only he hadn't come on this vacation in the first place.  Perhaps Tyler and Mike would still draw in breath, and he wouldn't find himself, almost literally, up sh*t's creek. Forty eight hours on the open sea...could he survive much longer?... If only.

Still very much single at thirty six, the man's "vacations" since hitting the dreaded thirty consisted of client meetings in Los Angeles, and tending to his ailing parents Back East. He loved his career, but his heart and mind always felt weighted down, and relationships were not his forte.  So when Mike, his best friend of twenty years,  pestered him into joining in an "all expenses paid" vacation to Hawaii, he jumped at the chance to experience joy and explore Paradise.  

Tyler was Mike's close friend from college, and owned a Surf and Kayak shop on the Big Island.  
Business was booming, and Tyler needed to test new equipment that he wanted to market under his own brand name.  Thus, he asked Mike to join him, and to bring a friend.  Mike's wife, Betsy, waddled with the ballooning weight of eight months of pregnancy, so her inclusion was impossible. The man suspected that Mike's invitation stemmed from a feeling of pity but he brushed those worries aside, and headed to Hawaii on a Thursday. 

 Thursday's activities included a tour of the Big Island, a hike up a volcano, and an evening luau.   Mike and Tyler wanted to go cliff-diving and parasailing, but the man denounced both ideas as "reckless". He told Mike, "C'mon man, we aren't twenty one anymore--think of all that could go wrong."  Mike implied that the man had lost his spontaneity and joy.  The man responded, "Nope, I've just lived a lot of life since then. I know all of the wrong turns things can take."

On Friday, however, after a lunch of Mahi Mahi and Margaritas by the breath-taking oceanfront, Tyler and Mike concocted a plan to find the "hidden island" of *Maluhai-- "Peace" in Hawaiian.  After much pleading, the man grinned, dropped his argument against the trip, and acquiesced.  The trio made plans to set out in Tyler's speedboat at daybreak on Saturday.

Although its existence is confirmed, Maluhai does not appear on any map.  It sits sixteen nautical miles out from the Big Island and is surrounded by a lagoon. The lagoon is often ensconced in fog, and many who try to find it are deterred by the harsh conditions that lead there.  Natives joke that it is the island that inspired "Lost".  Tyler revealed that he'd spent the last two years mapping the coordinates, was confident that they could find it, and had a fully-stocked and gassed speed boat, "CARPE DIEM" at the ready for the trip.

The man could not sleep on Friday night.  Restless with fear and excitement, he felt that the trip could help him to transform, and to find life exhilarating once again.  He wanted to show Mike that he was not dragged down by worry and the woes of life, but just cautious--and older and wiser.

And so, after minimal rest, the man joined his friends on the dock on Saturday, at dawn. As they loaded their gear onto the boat, Mike (a professional photographer) stopped to take pictures of the sky, painted crimson and indigo by the rising sun.  Tyler pointed out the silhouetted pelicans gliding near-by, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply.  The man was annoyed. Yes, he agreed, these things were beautiful, but they were on a schedule, and he was pretty sure the sun rose every day.
He prodded his friends onto CARPE DIEM, and the trio sped off, leaving carve-able, foamy wakes behind them.


As they hit the vast, clear open water, the man felt his worries ease.  Perhaps the time to throw caution to the wind had come after all.  Tyler jokingly suggested that they attach the tow line and water skis he kept below deck, and although the conditions were choppy, the man volunteered to take the first stab at manning the skis.  Mike wondered aloud if they should report their location to the Coast Guard first, as there were restrictions on allowed activity this far out at sea.  But, Tyler showed the others the detached wires extending from the bottom of the radio equipment--he so rarely used the boat, he had not bothered to check or fortify the communications system.

The man's typical reaction to this news would include panic and the command to head back to shore, but he wanted to prove to himself, and to his friends, that he could still take risks... he could engage with life, and he was taking steps to become a new, more carefree man. Thus, he comically strapped on a small, pink woman's life vest, and leapt off of the back of the boat.  

On his first attempt, he belly-flopped with such force, the splash resounded through the stillness of the water.  Internally, he wanted to cry.  He gulped down salty water, and his eyes stung, but he wore a brave face and took his friends' laughter with good humor.

And then, the sky darkened, and a vicious wind blew, whipping dry through the man's soaked long board shorts.  But he was up! He was skiing. He was victorious. With much trepidation, he called to his friends,  "Maybe we should head back--this doesn't look good."

Mike lovingly taunted him, and Tyler called him a wimp as he revved up CARPE's speed.  After  an eternal split-second, the heavens opened with their own furious reply, and before the man knew it, the towline had split from CARPE DIEM.  

By the time he emerged from the waves, coughing and yelling not-so-pleasantries to his friends, the man realized that he could not find them. The boat bobbed fifty feet away--capsized, and drifted further with each passing moment.  The man called to Tyler and Mike until his voice grew hoarse, but neither surfaced, and CARPE DIEM stood a mere speck in his line of vision.    

And now, he'd been adrift for two full days--no Coast Guard, no other vessels in sight.  The weather proved troubling, and in the fortieth hour, he gulped down the last of the Power Bar tucked into his life vest.  However, based on his own adept orienteering skills, he seemed, miraculously, to still be on course for Maluhia.

No one knew of the trip he and his friends set out upon, and no one was looking for him. He didn't much believe in God, but he called out to Him anyway.  He told God that if He proved Himself, and saved the man through quiet seas, food, peace, and rescue, he would commit his life to following His Grace and Providence.

He felt like a sarcophagus as his body continued to dehydrate and his lips split open.  He vowed never to take another risk as long as he lived--even the most calculated only led to heartbreak and ruin.  He reminisced about Lily, the only woman he'd felt close to marrying, and how she'd asked him to "wait for her" as she spent a year interning in Europe.  Twenty-five at the time, the man knew that Lily would hook-up with some hot European man, and then have to break the news.  He wanted to save himself that hurt, and so broke up with her instead.  He laughed bitterly at the memory, and tried, again, to focus his sight to the distance where an impenetrable cloud of fog hung--this had to mean Maluhia was close. The waves calmed to a lull, but he feared that this meant something more ominous loomed in the near distance.  

As he opened his eyes after his "last ditch" prayer, he noticed a school of bottle-nosed dolphins creeping close enough to touch.  Beads of water glistened from their dorsal fins, and the surrounding sea grew silent.  He knew the creatures were supposedly friendly, but worried that the silence and their encircling probably meant that sharks were nearby.  So, he used most of his remaining strength to flutter chaotically and scare them away.

  Immediately after his prayer, an annoying gull landed on his head where it stayed, sedentary, for close to ten minutes.  The man cursed God's silence.  He could not see where to paddle through the gull's shadow cast, and his own dreadlock-like hair hanging before his eyes.  After the bird decidedly relieved itself on his forehead, the man flung it off in a fit of rage.  Shocked that his feeble strength killed the gull, he watched in disgust as it floated away.

After some hours passed, and daybreak shed its soft skin to give way to the unrelenting blaze of the noonday sun, the man found he'd drifted to the fog.  Half delirious, he cried in relief, and flipped from his back to begin a crawl through it.  He was certain that the darker blue water a half mile into the thick white signified the lagoon.  "I'm going to find 'Peace' after all," he manically chuckled to himself.

As he grew closer to the lagoon, the man heard a foghorn blaring behind him, and then a disembodied voice emitting from a megaphone. "John? Oh wow, Johnny is that you? This is Mike, man! Tyler and I are with the Coast Guard. Hang tight, we're coming to get you!"

The man panicked.  Mike and Tyler were dead, he was sure of it.  He hastened his swim, and saw the glimmering hope of Maluhia in reachable distance.  The voice continued to call to him, and the foghorn ebbed closer, but he would not miss his opportunity based on a hallucination.  

The man took a deep breath, and dove far beneath the surface.  He hoped he'd cover more distance underneath the waves rather than on top of them.  Besides, if he learned one thing over his time in Hawaii, it was that waves were painful and that they should be avoided at all costs.

But the man never made it to shore.  During his plunge downward, he rammed into a coral reef.  He suffered severe brain injury, and drowned immediately.

_________________________________________________________________________________

From (local Hawaiian Channel 5) HTTN NEWS with beat reporter, Chase Simon: 

I'm standing here with the survivors of this horrible tragedy, Mike Dodd and Tyler Brown.  Mike, my understanding is that you and Tyler were picked up by the Coast Guard almost immediately after the accident, but Johnny Mason swam... away?

Yes sir, that's pretty accurate.  When Tyler and I swam from the wreck, we called to John, but he was screaming our names, and couldn't hear us.  We didn't want to lose sight of the Coast Guard boat, and John kept swimming away from us.  By the time we were picked up, Johnny was nowhere to be found.  It was a miracle that we came so close this morning, but he must have been so delirious by that point, he just--he just...

I understand that this is painful, Mr. Dodd.  Thank you for your time.

And there you have it.  A man turned from the help of his friends, hoping for the promise of "Peace", only to perish.

For Eyewitness news HTTN, this is Chase Simon.

(* There is no island called Maluhia.  This story is a different attempt on my part, so as always, thanks for reading).