Chapter 1
The story begins with Randy
A lone figure moved silently along the deserted lane. The narrow access ran behind the shops and restaurants that make up the epicenter of the small town of Koloa. Like a shadow, he clung to a row of trees and tall bushes as he traversed the opposite side of the road as if to go unnoticed in his journey. Just a dark silhouette slowly passing through the strange glow of a fading rain. As he came closer the light shifted and danced with the scudding clouds, and his features began to take shape. The ragged hem of a dark, oil-skin duster, flapping around unhurried ankles. A screen of long, black hair, lying about his neck like a limp curtain. A bulky pack shrugged over one shoulder, and a head that never shifted from the ground at his feet.
I was out there to escape the drawn and troubled faces of not just my employees, but almost everyone I was running into. I drifted aimlessly around the back door of the restaurant, wearing a circle in the tiny expanse of lawn that covered the septic tank, which was ironic since everything seemed to be turning to shit. It was a measure of peace, and hopefully a little quiet that I was seeking, an evasion of the questions for which I had no answers, from the people who needed them the most. My employees were looking to me for guidance and reassurance, and while I could offer them platitudes, I had nothing in the way of answers, because I was as much in the dark as they were. The news and events of the past week since I sat at the Hyatt, oblivious to what was coming, had all conspired to derail a dream and shake the very foundation of our future.
A rainbow, nothing more than an everyday occurrence here on Kauai, was a good enough excuse to drop what I was doing and get some fresh air. As aimless as it felt at times, my entire life had led me to where I am now. I had finally reached a place where I knew who I was, and what I wanted. A place where hard work and desire had come together to create a dream that my heart has silently chased for so long. Now, with the Covid pandemic running rampant, and the island closing, everything was up in the air.
I began to edge towards the door, my emotions reclaimed for the moment, when, against all odds, the shadow must have seen me. For without warning he abruptly changed his course and was now angling my way as if spotting prey. With some new purpose on his mind, he steadily advanced. I stood my ground, unable to duck back inside for fear he would misinterpret the action as avoidance, which I try never to do.
Ensnared, I waited for what I knew was coming. The form approaching me with obvious intent was a man I was well acquainted with and he seemed to have something he wanted to share. He's done this before, only to pass by without saying a word, but still, I waited. We have known each other for the last five years and he has set out to purposely baffle me the entire time.
He shrouds himself with an air of stoicism, mixed with quiet dispersions of his own ideas and changing theories, delivered in reverent, low tones, as though he were a mystic. Shambling toward me was a man who could run your mind in circles, and leave even the sanest man unnerved. Even more than that, he enjoys tweaking his notions to more properly fit the odd situations and strange news of the day.
His name is Randy, and I've grown to like him since we first met. He can be a bit trying and testy sometimes, but I have found that hidden under the folds of his shifting personality is a good person, with a soft heart. He's certainly an interesting guy. I would have to call him more of an acquaintance than an actual friend, as he doesn't readily embrace the term, even though I see and talk to him almost every day. Even if it's nothing more than a mumbled greeting. For reasons of his own choosing, he's invented a different sort of logic to better cope with life. We've had our share of normal conversations, but they're rare.
Randy is somewhere in his mid-thirties. I've seen him dressed in a wide array of different styles and colors from hippie to Hindu, depending on his mood, which swang the compass from day to day but was never violent. Today he was dressed in a black, open-collar shirt, unbuttoned to allow a thick mat of chest hair to sprout from the top, black board shorts, and a black straw fedora, with a black feather from a Nene curiously poking up from the hatband. With the long coat he was wearing he could have been Johnny Cash. Even the sandals he wore were black.
It was a look he chose often lately, devoid of color and lacking substance as if he saw the world that way, and I believe he did. He's revealed his fluctuating ideas to me enough over the years for me to know what topics to avoid. Otherwise, the only other option to moving the day forward is to ally and concede whatever point he was trying to make. Which is precisely what he wants, to see if he can bring you to his side. He knows exactly what he's doing and he plays the game like a seasoned pro.
He ambles over and manages to raise his head. He stares at me with faraway eyes that appear to be looking straight through me into another time. Haunted eyes. I wish I knew more of his story; I know some, but not enough to understand why he's become the introverted and suspicious character he has chosen to be. He's never been one to speak of his own life. I would often pop in a question, usually something of the background variety, only to be met with answers so vague they could belong to anyone. Or worse, a look so icy that I didn't dare suggest the matter again. He doesn't shake hands or touch fists, and he scowls at any sort of traditional greeting, so I simply pointed up and spoke.
"Hey Randy, you see the rainbow?"
"Are you kidding me?" His question was a mix of sarcasm and disgust.
"No, I'm not, looks like maybe a double. You see up above, the colors inverting?" I said.
"Dave, what are you doing out here staring at rainbows? I mean, look around you man, don't you see it, the world is swirling the drain, and you act like everything's fine, everything's normal. We're approaching some kind of global crisis here man, something I've seen coming for years, and you seem unshaken, looking at the sky. Don't you see that none of this makes sense, or." he raises a finger and waves it around emphatically. "It's been so perfectly orchestrated, that it makes perfect sense. If you're watching. Me, I'm watching."
To be honest, I was completely shaken. It's why I was out there in the first place. I had no idea what the coming days or weeks would bring, let alone the extended lockdown for the foreseeable future. But, at the same time, I've been hearing this line from him since we met, hell it might have been our introduction. One sign after another that the world is finished, and believe me, I've tried to understand his view, but I don't think he even understands it. He'll wave his hands and ramble and contradict himself with great conviction.
"I don't know what to think, Randy, all I can seem to process are the memories and my brain won't turn those off. You know we're closing, right? Everyone is."
"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry, but it doesn't change the fact that there's some weird shit going down. You're just the fallout. This has all the feel of some type of prophecy or something. Remember what I told you about the reset?"
His beliefs run in wild directions that have no basis in fact, or most often even reality, but he nurtures and protects them like a man clinging to his last hope. One of those is the growing idea that the world will burn itself out through flood, disease, or some other cataclysm every ten thousand years or so, sweeping the Earth and wiping out all mankind, save a select few. And the cycle begins anew. Whether it's true, or not, I wouldn't know, nor would I spend any part of my day considering it, there's enough to worry about in the here and now. But Randy does.
"I don't know, Randy, you've brought this up before and I'm still not persuaded by what you're saying. Let's just relax and see what happens, I mean, there's nothing we can do now anyway. I'm not saying that it doesn't look a little bleak, but I don't think it means the end of the world, come on. You know somehow we will find a way to get through it, all of it."
"Are you serious right now? Read the signs! I've seen one military vehicle after another heading up towards the missile base, and I overheard a guy saying that it's been that way for the last week. You think that's a coincidence? A mysterious virus, and the military massing?" He was so intense.
I thought 'massing' was a bit over the top, but I knew Randy loved big statements. The newspaper was reporting that the National Guard was pulling together their resources and preparing to enforce the upcoming shelter-in-place order. While not a comforting thought, nothing about it seemed ominous.
"I've seen it too, and I think you're making too much out of it. You're arriving at assumptions that have no basis in fact and leaping to conclusions that you know nothing about. I'm sure it's all Covid-related, I've seen a lot of big helicopters heading that way from Oahu." I didn't want to go into this.
"I might know a little more than you think, and just because I was in the Army doesn't mean I trust the government, any government. Cover-up seems to be their first, and only go-to, no man, I do not trust the government." He was a little agitated.
"So,...
