Gilda Trillim by Steven L. Peck

Author:Steven L. Peck [Peck, Steven L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 978-1-78279-881-1
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Published: 2017-09-28T16:00:00+00:00

Vignette 13: Meditations at Apua Point, Big Island Hawaii. Circa 1972

This represents a well-known fragment from Gilda’s Journal. It is one of my favorite pieces in all of the Archive. Anything I could add would be superfluous and take away from the depth of this work. I therefore provide it without commentary.

No one will find me here. To the southeast hangs the friendly gibbous orb I’ve known all my life occasioning a path of serene white moonlight reflecting across the top of the ocean, fulgent in the breakers. To the north a sulfurous fog steaming off of Kilauea obscures the low stars. They say in a few weeks the lava might reach here and cover this spot. I hope not. Perhaps the ghosts of the ancient Hawaiians will hold it at bay. This is a sacred spot I am told. I gently breathe in good sea air. I am sitting on a spit of land jutting out from an unpretentious lagoon that makes this place susceptible for basking in nature’s sorceries. I am alone. Inhaling the moist oceanic ether drives away the fear, or some of it anyway.

I look back over to my bivouac and see the reflection of my fire against the black lava rock wall that guards my camp. What was that rectangular ruin of piled stones once constructed to be? A temple? A home? A hut for a fisherman who whiled away his time mending net and line to catch his family’s dinner? I want to think temple. This seems the kind of place I would raise one had I the inclination to give into certain temptations. I just cooked a pan of Japanese noodles and opihi that I picked from the wave-caressed rocks this afternoon.

A kind old Filipino man who ran the little mom and pop store in the town of Volcano introduced this delicious shellfish to me. When he saw I had a transradial prosthesis, he asked if I had been in Nam. I answered yes, managing to lie while telling the truth since I was implying that’s where I lost my hand. He told me his son had died there. His eyes watered and we were soon talking, I told him I had been a POW for two years. I don’t tell anyone that, but it all spilled out of me like a confession. Soon we were both in tears telling each other stories that burst from us like some sort of emotional flatulence. Ironic given the purpose of the trip was to leave that event behind.

He then told me about Apua Point, the loneliest spot on the island—a six-mile backpack from the most southern point of the Chain of Craters Road. He told me about the opihi, something he would normally never tell a tourist. He also warned me about the rats that would try to steal my food. He didn’t know that the promised presence of rats would guarantee my visit to the spot. Isolation and rats. What could be better?

The taste of opihi may have been worth spilling the beans about how I spent the last few years.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.