The Maui Effect (Man-Made Trilogy #1)

Consolations

Dane

They pushed back their flight a few days to monitor Kama’s perforated eardrum, loss of equilibrium and bouts of nausea. Dane stayed with him for moral support, and because the poor guy could barely move around without falling over. The surf had dropped significantly, returning to a deceptive calm, and Yeti had flown back to California.

Dane roamed the streets and combed the beaches, looking for a peace of mind that wouldn’t come. Not only was he a coward when the surf got real, but his mind kept snapping back to seeing ‘Iwa at Uncle’s, telling her he loved her, and her telling him to leave. It was going to haunt him until he took his last breath.

On the second day, when he reached the end of the beach, he decided he would swim straight out to sea in the frigid water, dive down and grab a handful of sand, then keep going and dive down again. When he could no longer reach the bottom, he would turn around and swim in. If that didn’t shake him out of this funk, nothing would.

He and Kama had done this on the north shore of O‘ahu one night after drinking a bottle of tequila. It was the middle of winter, and there had been a solid swell. Kama seemed to think it would be fun, and Dane did not disagree. The next morning, they’d both questioned their sanity. But the following winter, they did it again and it became tradition.

Swimming out to sea wasn’t as daunting in broad daylight, but the water at Nazaré was in the midfifties at high noon. He only made it out maybe a few hundred yards before it became apparent that his lungs needed work. Practicing breath holds would become top priority when he got home. Every little edge counted.

When he returned to the room, Kama was sitting up in bed watching TV. “You don’t have to stay, you know,” he told Dane, rubbing below his ear.

Dane sat down and opened a bottle of sparkling water. “And leave you to crawl your way through the airport?”

Yesterday, Kama had been too dizzy to even walk, so he’d gotten down on his knees and crawled to the bathroom.

“I’m feeling better already.”

“Still, you don’t want to chance it with your eardrum, it could mess you up for life.”

Kama looked toward the window, staring out at the blue sky for a few moments. “You should go.” Their eyes met and it felt to Dane as though Kama was looking right into his soul. “There are people back home who need you more than I do.”

The force was strong, but still, he could not leave his friend. “I’m not leaving you. Just two more days, and we go together.”

“To Maui?”

Dane wasn’t sure his heart could take another stomping on. “We’ll see.”

The following morning, after a double espresso at Cafe O Mar, Dane showed up at the beach ready to swim. The ocean was dead calm and reminded him of California. He sat down on the hard-packed sand and stretched for a few minutes, breathing in the sunshine and watching a crab throw sand out of its newly dug hole.

He felt a tickle on his foot, as the crab he had been watching made its way up his leg. Dane shot up and kicked it off, then laughed at himself for being such a wuss. Sun-warmed and stretched, he dove in the water and swam as hard and fast as he could. It was about a half mile out to the trench, where the ocean floor dropped away to twenty-six hundred fathoms. You could tell where the abyss began because the water went from a murky green to a deep, dark blue, almost black.

Today, he swam out and dove down until he could no longer grab sand. But instead of turning around like he usually did, something drove him to keep going. Cold water seared into his skin, but the faster he swam, the less he felt the icy burn. It felt good to push himself, and there was also a freedom in having nothing to lose. The thought crossed his mind that he could keep going, out beyond the trench, to where the wild things swam.

He could sense the trench as he approached, sucking in the light and reflecting back a dark mystery of sea. There was sure to be more than lost submarines down there. Numb and shivering, he stopped and floated, face down as though he might be able to see all the souls the ocean had collected over the years. He wore no goggles, so he only saw shapes. A while later, he had no idea how long, a column of gray torpedoes began rising up beneath him. He took a breath and then looked down again to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

Something nudged his hip. Another, his arm. He felt a series of clicks and whistles pinging through his body. Dolphins, echolocating him. The pod was a big one, and soon surrounded him. Giant, gunmetal creatures, bullet-like in their speed. Dane was wide-eyed now, every nerve in his body firing. The dolphins began swimming toward shore, herding him along with them. One kept bumping his foot with its snout, another swam alongside him.

As he made for land, he realized his energy was sapped, and the cold was rapidly draining his strength. He began to shiver. His arms felt like waterlogged branches. The dolphins closed in, swimming only inches away from him. Dane was moved by their presence, almost to the point of tears. The dolphins escorted him into the shallows, until he could stand up. He wanted to somehow show them his gratitude, but how did one thank a pod of dolphins? The big one who had been swimming alongside him the whole way was still close, so Dane reached out and ran his hand along the dolphin’s surprisingly smooth back.

“I owe you one.”

The dolphin then smacked its tail and shot off, heading for deeper water.