Ocean of Time

The child returned from the tidepools, singing, and carrying an object shaped like a giant egg.

"It's the egg of an ancient creature. I found it. I was there." Her voice bubbled with wonder and joy.

Wet and panting, the four-legged shadow that followed her everywhere, jumped around her, playing and twisting, wagging its tail.

“Kakahiaka Noe, Foggy Morning, good dog, come here, silly thing.” The young girl's high pitched voice mingled with the sound of the waves.

Back at the village many serious eyes watched from the hill.

"What is this nonsense? Something needs to be done about this odd child. She is not like one of us. Where is her mother?"

One of the women spoke and several people nodded.

The mother stood a distance away, smiling, but her ears picked up their words.

She shrugged and continued with her own different thoughts.

"Oh, my delightful explorer, how I adore your curious nature, your stories of strange creatures, your playful visions, and your dancing mind."

"You have inherited great, great, great-grandmother's personality. She was a different one, and the legends about her tell of wondrous things."

"They say she would disappear into morning sea mists and spiral through time to other worlds, then return to tell us about it."

"We thought she was a gifted storyteller, but there were some who secretly whispered the tales were so detailed they must be true."

"My mother and her mother, generations of mothers, believed the stories were real."

Years ago, the girl began dragging branches on the beach to make designs. She created spirals in the sand at low tide, and they were washed away by the next high tide.

The mother saw it was time to give her child a new name.

“Daughter, your artwork is washed away, like time itself, and the ocean takes it to the deep seas. Your new name will be Kai o ka Manawa, “Ocean of Time.” We can call you Kai for short.”

Today ten year old Kai o ka Manawa, Ocean of Time, ran, leaping and splashing, across the bay's tidepools near the towering rock mountain of the sleeping volcano.

Millions of years ago, ancient ancestors of the creatures living there now roamed.

A rare few people in later times got to visit, see, and experience the ancients.

Only those whose natural abilities still survived early childhood cultural pressures could see the visions, follow them, and glide through the spirals of time.

Kai o ka Manawa, Ocean of Time, was born with the ability to move through the tides of time, seeing other creatures and worlds, and experiencing ancient life that others only heard about in legends.

Kai’s uncut hair flew behind her like dark clouds in the night, the strands trailing in the ocean's gusty wind, and her toes sprang and bounced across the sand.

The creature she first saw from her hut at breakfast now moved in and out of the morning marine layer, near the pale edge of the waves creeping up the beach.

Kai’s four-legged companion’s pointed ears stood up like sharp mountain peaks. His tail streamed behind him. The eyes flashed. The grayish tan fur rippled.

When Kai's mother spoke about Kai she would say, "She's always been extra sensitive...to loud sounds and bright light...she has strong reactions…her mind is not like ours."

"I love that child more than anything...but her ways make my days go up and down...I try to think of her as part rascal and part beautiful wild thing."

"What is she seeing that we cannot see?" Another villager tilted his head, drew his eyebrows together, and squinted into the dawn mists.

Earlier, the girl ate dried fish and broth made of ground acorns, shellfish, and hand-picked herbs for breakfast.

In the dark before dawn, hints of brightening changed the sky above the huts near the beach.

To the west, near the shore, rose the living being made of rock in the shape of a six hundred foot tall dome.

Morning stars and a half moon still shed some light on the giant rock mountain. The moisture-laden mists moved in shapes floating around it.

"I see something! There it is again!" The young girl cried out. She set down her tightly woven reed basket of warm broth. Then she jumped up from the orange embers of the low fire in the sandy soil.

"What? I don't see anything. Child, what is it?" Her mother's calls were lost in the salty air breezes, and the girl disappeared into the dim light and wispy fog.

"I must be losing my sight in this dawn light. Seeing things that cannot be," the mother's voice muttered.

"First I see her running...then she seems to be two figures, a row of figures...then she disappears."

"And...here is her cloak left on the ground...but where did she go?"

The girl chased the creature she had seen in the distance on the estuary beach.

The bulky animal shape was taller than three or four people and had four tusks. It was a Mastodon from millions of years ago.

It all started when the child was very young.

Grabbing a piece of driftwood, the tiny child began making pictures in the sand when she could barely walk.

Then, growing larger and more steady, she dragged branches with twigs attached across the wet sand at low tide.

Circles and spirals with paths connecting them appeared.

"It looks like our spirals of time," said the village grandmothers and grandfathers. "Like our paintings in the caves."

"It is in spirals because the seasons circle from the darkest, shortest day to the brightest, longest day of sun, going round and round."

"Yes," said one grandfather. "And...always going forward like a moving spirals.

"But what puzzles me are the creatures she draws. They are so vivid and detailed." One young woman's pierced the morning air.

"I have seen her sleeping and dreaming at night, tossing, turning. Who knows what she is seeing." One person added another observation.

Now the villagers looked at the heavy, smooth egg shape the girl carried when she staggered back to the huts.

“Mama. A giant egg, from an ancient creature. I went through the mists of time and brought this back with me."

The villagers chuckled, but they also rolled their eyes.

“We need to expel this odd child before she influences the other children,” said one of the other mothers. “I don’t want my children playing with her.”

One week the villager’s mutterings got worse. They were planning a way to drive away Kai o ka Manawa, Ocean of Time, and her mother.

Kai’s mother packed bags of clothing, dried food and herbs.

“Who knows what we will find when we get where we are going,” she thought.

The next morning Kai and Kakahiaka Noe, Foggy Morning the dog, looked toward the misty beach.

“I’m going with you, Kai, and we are not coming back.” Her mother spoke quietly.

Kai looked with wide eyes at her mother.

“I have heard what they are saying, Mother. Yes, we will go. To another time and place. But all will be well. I already have friends there.”

The villagers were too busy to notice Kai, her mother, and her dog, Foggy Morning, disappearing into the marine layer where the sea met the sand.

That night, they did not return.

But sometimes the villagers thought they saw pale silhouettes dancing and playing joyfully on the beach in the early dawn, with a dog leaping and twisting.