A lean and sun-browned man slithers in the shallows as easily as an eel after fry, till he draws his legs under and stands, taller than the first organisms walking out of the sea but with original intent: to improve his niche, on land.
With his hair wetted to his neck, a scant loin pocket, and a scruffy beard dripping below swim-goggled eyes, he makes an amphibious transition, coming up and out.
An emergence from an hour or two of reef repose gives him pause for wonder. Ankle deep, he watches two children and a dog playing naked in the waves. The girl of ten sweeps her long, black hair out of the way childishly with both hands. Composed as a tropical cameo one moment, she surges with energy the next, yelling at the boy to eat: “Mange! C'est une tempête en mer, et tu dois manger pour rester fort!” It’s a storm at sea, and you must eat to stay strong!
He sits on a paddleboard. She pulls it by a rope along the shallow surf line.
The dog barks, trying to jump on and finally clambering aboard, where he teeters, facing the back to better watch the boy.
The boy eats from a plate on his lap: baked yams, carrots and pineapple. Small wave-tops season his lunch. The dog whines.
Leihua pulls the paddleboard to waist depth and points it into the surf, then gives it a push, commanding him to eat.
Justin eats, piercing the short break, focused on the pineapple saved for last along with a piece of taro for the dog.
The man says, “Mes enfants,” as a statement of being, a navigational fix on terra firma. He slogs up a sandy path, no longer buoyant. The kids and dog gravitate and follow toward the house, leaving the paddleboard high on the beach.
At the house they’ll rest and pass the hottest part of the afternoon. They might doze. In two hours the boy and girl will tend to schoolwork while the man prepares dinner. He may manipulate images on his computer for a while before the woman arrives from the hospital.
Meanwhile, on the way up, they pass a mound of dirt topped with smooth rocks, the topmost a marker, engraved: Skinny. It’s a final resting place, but its reluctant feline tenant would rather use it as a perch. She jumps to the top and wobbles off, so the man picks her up and sets her on top again. The old, feeble cat with the baby face suddenly sees him and speaks her catch-all word to the omniscient one who insists that she keep living, that she keep processing moments as she has for the last twenty-two years.
When the man and children pass, she leans forward to swat the dog on the butt but falls off trying and meows again, falling into the procession up the path.