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CALLIE
I don’t knowwhat time it is when I wake up. I hear soft voices outside the cabana, and then they are gone. But what is more unusual is the wild cacophony of birds. It’s like waking up in a parrot zoo.
Katura is fast asleep next to me. The girl can sleep through a war.
The room is sunken in the soft morning light. Thirty by thirty feet. Simple. Two mattresses. Low Asian-style couches like in the chill-out lounges. The low wooden platform in the middle is littered with books, magazines, an ashtray and dirty cups. White translucent curtains hang all around, shifting in the slight breeze. It could be a fancy lounge at some resort if it didn’t look so rundown.
I get up from the mattress and pad across the sandy floor toward the opening to the outside.
Wow!
The lounge, shaded by palm trees, is only fifty or so feet away from the water. Birds of all kinds chirp like mad in flower shrubs and trees. And the view in front of me is like a postcard.
The waves lap softly at the shore. I fight the feeling of suspicion. You start being suspicious of anything when you live during fallout. Unless you have a radiation detector at hands.
But they said this island is untouched.
A miracle, really.
After seeing desolation, miles of familiar places turned into no man's land, destruction, law-abiding citizens turn into marauders, mile-long lines for food donation, and abandoned towns and ruins, this place is truly a paradise.
Just wow.
I can’t help but stare at the azure waters with cyan patches and sprinkles of darker brownish weed floating closer to shore. It’s so calm that the storm the day before seems like something out of my nightmares.
I walk from under the shade created by the trees onto the beach.
The beach is less than a mile-long stretch of sugary-white sand and beyond—majestic blue infinity.
Along the beach are a number of bungalows—some are tiki huts, others are makeshift patched up cabins. A larger, open-sided cabana with a coconut-palm-branches roof over wooden beams, raised wooden floor and long tables and rows of benches must be the dining area.
Hammocks are strung here and there between the palm trees and plumerias. A guy snores in one of them, his tatted hand hanging down almost to the ground.
The beach is surrounded by the green jungle. Palm trees duck almost to the ground onto the white sand, snaking toward the water. On either side of the beach and just some distance ahead rocks are peaking out of the water, and the sound of the crashing waves is louder there.
When I narrow my eyes, I see more details. Specifically, the beams, many of them, sticking out of the water in symmetrical rows. And it dawns on me—thiswasonce a resort.
I walk toward the water, feeling the warm sand under my feet. It must be just past dawn. The sun is barely above the horizon, and there is pleasant coolness in the air, licking at my skin.
I inhale deeply.
God, it’s been a while. After the Change, you learn to breathe carefully, which is ridiculous, because radiation finds you anywhere, regardless of whether you are wearing a respirator or a protective suit.
To my right, just a distance away, there are several girls in the Sun Salutation pose. It almost looks like a tropical yoga retreat.
I step up to the water and smile when the first wave rustles to my feet. I wiggle my toes in the wet sand and wait for the next wave.
My heart clenches, my eyes burning with tears.
This is so perfect that what happened to the rest of the world seems utterly unfair. Maybe I am still not myself.
My body is sore.
My muscles ache.
My head is still heavy from all the swallowed water the night before.
My hair is a messy bird’s nest.
