Lost at Sea

              The ocean was like a giant piece of glass. For days, there hadn’t been the tiniest breeze. The water was so still that it seemed frozen.

              Holokai stared over the edge of the ship, he was hoping to see the shadows of fish but all he saw was his own gaunt reflection. They had been lost at sea for over a year, now enduring largely on a diet of fish and boiled sea water. They hadn’t caught anything in days, the food stores had long been emptied even of the ship rats. It would be bone broth for supper tonight and then there would be nothing left for tomorrow.

              “Please, help us,” Holokai begged of the gods of the sea and the wind. He didn’t know what more to say; he was out of prayers. He thought the better way to go would be to simply throw himself into the sea, but there were too many people depending on him. He was the captain of the ship and of the four-hundred people aboard, of which included his eight-year-old daughter. As much as he didn’t want to starve, he also didn’t want to leave his child and his people to this uncertain fate.

              Holokai plastered on a façade of calm and confidence before he left the railing. “Cast the nets, I see fish!”

              It was a lie, but the faces of his people lit up. Everyone got to work preparing the nets and a selection of makeshift fishing poles. With that little spark of hope, they would do everything in their power to catch those fabled fish. It was a betrayal of their trust but that hope would distract them from the thought of impending starvation.

              Holokai circled the deck and offered encouraging words to the sullenest faces, trying to kindle their spirits. As he reached the stern, he realized he hadn’t seen his daughter at all this morning. When the voyage had begun it had been difficult to keep Kalani off the rails, masts, and ropes as she had an innate need to climb and explore.

              He redirected to the captain’s cabin, fear twisting his guts as his mind ventured through every horrifying possibility. He found her in the main room, sitting on the bench with her knees pulled up to her chest. She didn’t seem to register his presence until he sat beside her.

              “Can I have something to eat, Papa?” Kalani asked.

              “Later,” He promised.

              “But I’m hungry,” She muttered. “Can’t you share yours?”

              “I don’t have anything, honey, everyone is hungry. But they’re fishing now. If they catch something there will be more to eat. Would you like to come help?”

              Kalani didn’t respond, instead she stared at the far wall, half-mindedly gnawing at her thumb as the saliva dripped from her mouth.

              Holokai rubbed her back a moment but his guts boiled with such guilt that he had to leave and find a distraction. His wife had been pregnant when the king had sent him to lead this expedition. Given Kalani’s untamable nature, he had thought that bringing her along on the adventure would be better for everyone involved. At first, she had loved it – scaling trees to inspect new fruits and birds. But then they had become so lost in that storm that no one was completely sure in which direction might be land. Being confined to this ship had to be even more torturous to Kalani than anyone else onboard.      

               After fishing all day, they only caught six fish. Shared between four-hundred mouths that didn’t equate to much. Holokai sat down to supper with his daughter at the little table in the main room. His stomach growled, looking at the small chunk of fish meat suspended in the bowl of broth. But his guilt outweighed his hunger. After a few sips of the broth, he passed the bowl to Kalani.

              Kalani downed both servings in seconds and asked for more, her eyes dimmed when he told her there wasn’t any more.

              That night, Holokai was kept awake by the sharp feeling of hunger. When he managed to ignore it, his mind wandered through the mounting guilt. He had abandoned his pregnant wife only to bring his daughter and his people to slowly starve in the middle of the ocean.

              A strange scrapping sound startled Holokai. He jumped out of bed and rushed to investigate. Out in the main room, he heard it again, coming from Kalani’s room.

              He burst into the room with unwarranted horror. Instead of the terrible possibilities that had flashed through his mind, he found Kalani kneeling on the floor beside her bed, nibbling on something undefinable in the dim moonlight which poured from the window.

              Startled, she tucked her hands beneath her legs.

              “What was that?” He asked

              “Nothing, Papa,” She assured.

              Holokai moved to inspect the bedside and his daughter positioned herself defensively before him.

              “Move,” He asserted.

              Her eyes burned threateningly but she remained silent.

              “Kalani, please,” He sighed.

              She bared her teeth and hissed at him like some wild animal.

              Holokai snatched her up under his right arm and pulled the bed away from the wall. There was a hole where a board had been torn up from the flooring. In the alcove was a dwindling collection of snacks - stale chunks of bread, candies wrapped in little papers, and a moldy orange which she had clung to until long after it was any good.

              Kalani sunk her teeth into his arm so that, in jerking away, he dropped her to the floor.

              “That’s my food!” She screeched, shoving the bed back in place.

Holokai remembered a hundred times over the past year that he was brought stories of missing food items. He had always assumed that the stress of becoming lost at sea was causing people to be forgetful and fetter over little things. As the food situation had grown worse, he had thought it was their own children unable to bear the constant hunger and looking for any stray morsel to shove down their throats. But now he couldn’t help but wonder how much of that had been Kalani.

“It’s not yours,” He said, softly. “You took it from other people.”

“I told the gods thank you.”

“That doesn’t make it okay to take things.”

“Having food always means taking things! That’s what Mama said. We take the plants and animals for food, that’s why we always have to say thank you.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Is too! At home, if I eat a banana, the monkeys can’t have it anymore. If I eat a fish, the sharks can’t eat it. If I eat rice, no other person will eat it. Everything is always like that. Eating is taking – taking from the plants, taking from the animals, taking from all the other people.”

“It’s not the same,” Holokai repeated. “We all have to work together to take care of each other. When you take food from our people, you hurt everyone. You make others go hungry and teach them not to trust each other.”

“So what?” She snapped.

“So, you have to stop stealing,” He pressed.

“I’m always hungry, Papa. If there’s food, I’m going to eat it.”

“I know that it’s hard to understand this… but the consequences of stealing will be worse than being hungry.”

“I don’t care! If you can’t get me food, I’ll get it all by myself! I don’t care if it’s something a bad person does!”

Holokai felt a cold wave of hopelessness crash over him. This was all because he had failed her. He kissed the top of her head. “I’m trying, my little Ko’ali flower, but I know it’s not enough. I’ll keep trying, please just do your best to not take anything else.”

In the following week, the ship made little progress as there was barely ever a breeze.

Holokai rarely ate, handing most of his food over to Kalani. He had imagined that would be enough to keep her content until he discovered her in a supply closet, downing several crab legs she had stolen from the kitchen – most of the day’s haul.

              He hid the evidence as best he could and again attempted to scold her but he knew his words were meaningless. She would never consent to suffer for ideas she didn’t understand. He felt like a zombie, with nothing but a sickening hollowness inside of him as he waited for the inevitable moment she was caught. He heard whispers on the ship of thievery. He even heard Kalani’s name suggested a few times, and the fact that she never seemed quite as fazed by the hunger as any of the other children. But without evidence, the people kept their speculations amongst themselves.

              The next day, a man was brought to Holokai – caught stealing from the kitchens. The people clamored at him to deal with the situation.

              “You can’t let people think this is tolerable, or others will begin stealing as well,” They said.

              Of course, Holokai knew this. He knew if he showed weakness in anyway that everything would fall apart. He was the last strand holding together everyone’s hope, without it they would not cooperate and would do whatever they could for themselves regardless of how it affected anyone else.

              “I want everyone who is well enough to walk to be on deck for this,” Holokai decided.

              The crew hurried off to rally the passengers.

When he made it to the deck himself, it was already a riot of chanting. “Thief! Thief!”

              Holokai found a crate to stand on and waved his arms to quiet the crowd.

              “I have a family to feed,” The accused man cried. “I was just trying to take care of them, is all. “

              “Every person on this ship gets the same amount food. When you take food from someone, you take it from their mouth, from their family. We cannot have thievery aboard this ship. If we begin to hurt each other like that, we will fall into chaos. It is only through persevering together that we have made it this far. I will not tolerate this behavior. Any man, woman, or child who would dare to hurt another like that… there is no space on this ship for people who make that choice.” Holokai motioned to his crew.

              The air was filled with screams as they hefted the thief over the rail and dropped him into the ocean. The people either pressed against the railing to watch the man fight to keep his head above the water, or they slunk away with pale, white faces.

              Holokai’s body trembled at what he had just done, he stared hard into Kalani’s eyes and willed her to understand the circumstances. If she continued to steal, then that would be her clawing at the side of the ship, gulping for air and screaming for help.

              Kalani only glared back at him.

That night, they sat together for supper, as usual.

Kalani scarfed down her helping in seconds and then stared longingly at his bowl. “Can I have some more? Please, Papa.”

“No more,” Holokai asserted. He couldn’t have the whispered accusations against her gain any ground, they were already scrutinizing her body weight. If it continued on much longer they might find that in itself to be enough evidence. “I can’t share with you today.”

She pouted, “But I’m still hungry.”

“I’m hungry, too, and this is my share. You’ve already had yours.”

Kalani crossed her arms defiantly. “Then I’ll find more food all by myself.”

Holokai shoveled the last bite into his mouth.

“Come here,” He said, softly.

She came around the table, hands held out as though she still expected something more to eat from him.

Holokai scooped her up onto his lap. He cradled her against his chest and held his breath to press back the tears that wanted to fall. “I am so sorry, my little Ko’ali flower. I know that it’s your nature to grow and grow wherever you please… but I need you to slow down, stay still for me, be okay where you are even though it’s difficult… even though you’re hungry.”

“I’ve never been caught,” She whispered. “I can get more food and no one will know it was me.”

“I know,” He kissed the top of her head, and stroked her golden hair. “But if you were caught you would be thrown off the ship. Even if you weren’t caught, it still shows on your body. Have you noticed that everyone is growing smaller, except for you? People are starting to talk, even if they don’t catch you stealing, they’ll still know. They need to know when they look at you that you are just as hungry as the rest of us. You can’t steal and I can’t share with you anymore.”

“I hate being hungry all the time! If you won’t feed me I’ll get my own food, I don’t care if they hate me, it’s better than starving!”

Holokai hugged her more tightly, afraid she would wriggle out from his arms and find trouble before he could stop her. “I know, honey, I know. But I would rather you hate me for making you suffer than to have watch you drown.”

He stood, and holding her tightly to him, he crossed the cabin to her room.

“I don’t want to go to bed, I want more food,” She whined, beginning to struggle against him. “Let me go, you’re squeezing me too hard.”

Holokai kissed the top of her head once more. “I’m only doing this because I love you.”

He dropped Kalani onto her bed, slipped out of the room without responding to her glare or questions. He fished the ring of keys out from the front of his shirt and bolted the lock on her door.

“I’m sorry,” He whispered. In the silence, he could only imagine the horrified look on her face as she realized what he had done.

That next morning Holokai awoke with a sharp headache. Kalani was continuously banging on her door, and for the longest time it had bled into his dream. Ignoring his daughter, he dressed in his uniform and headed to the deck. The best he could do for her now was to press forward on the search for food and land.

Spirits were low after the drowning of the thief. As he patrolled the ship throughout the day he no longer overheard any whispered rumors or accusations at all.

Holokai didn’t return to the cabin until that night, once the food had been divided up and served to all the other families. There wasn’t any banging at Kalani’s door. He unlocked it. The moment he opened it to bring in her soup, she sprung from the floor and tried to squeeze past him to get out of the room.

With one hand, Holokai struggled to blockade her. She bit his leg. In trying to get her off he both spilled her dinner and knocked her back across the floor.

              Holokai quickly slammed the door shut and locked it again. His leg was bleeding.

              “My food!” Kalani screeched. “That’s not fair! I want food!”

              “I don’t have more food,” He snapped, far more harshly than he had been with her in a long time. “It’s your own fault it spilled. I know you have more food under your bed – eat that.”

“I hate you!” She screamed. “I want Mama! I want to go home to Mama!!”

Holokai slumped against the door. His eyes stung and his heart ached. “I know. I want to go home to Mama, too.”

Holokai kept his daughter locked up in her room for days, only slipping in at night to bring her share of the day’s food. Although, somedays there was nothing at all. For the first few days, she fought to escape and screamed through the door at him for hours. But she grew too weak to fight and too weak to scream, so that when he came to bring her food she would remain curled in the corner, ignoring his presence.

Over the next week, over a hundred died from starvation, illnesses they couldn’t fight off, or they were cast off the ship for stealing. The sad twist of fate was that the corpses floating in the water around the ship attracted schools of fish. So, at the end of the week they were catching more fish and had less mouths to feed. For the first time in a long time, they had a decent meal and still had food left over.

The climate on the ship changed, people became more hopeful and content. There was a beautiful sunrise that sparked even more joy in the despairing situation.

Holokai finally permitted his daughter to leave her room, he wanted to show her the sunset, to show her that things were really going to get better. She was so weak that she clung to his leg for support. As much as he felt crushed by the guilt of having done this to her, he also thanked the gods that she was still alive when so many had died. Her hands gripping to him assured that she hadn’t the energy to get herself into any trouble soon.   

Carefully, they climbed the stairs to the deck together. The sky was still painted with oranges and pinks. A breeze was stirring up and the ocean began to ripple. Without waiting for the command, the sails were unfurled.

Holokai spotted a flock of birds in the distance. Birds meant there had to be land within reach and not an endless ocean as many had begun to fear.

              “Look at that, Kalani, isn’t that amazing?” He breathed. He wanted to see that hope sparked in his daughter’s eyes.

              But her eyes were filled with horror - transfixed on the water around the ship, now covered with a blanket of floating bodies.