The Ways We Orbit

Kyle Weik

Waiting for Mercury To Rise

Whenever I lie down the numbness hits, and I think it’s all the canned tuna I ate as a boy. Grandpa would mix it with mayonnaise and shoyu and serve it over rice before sliding it across the kitchen table. Itadakimasu. I meowed in response. I was five—thirty-seven in cat years, and cats didn’t speak Japanese or need parents. Benji, cats are seen not heard, Grandpa barked.

Now everything tastes like metal and the tingling is strongest at night. WebMD says it’s a symptom of mercury poisoning.

Hours of spiraling brings me to my knees, searching for my pack of American Spirit—the only religion I believe in. There’s not much to do Upcountry, especially at this hour, so I fry Spam in guava jelly. Pink lava bubbles, spits, and sticks. I ash my cigarette on the counter. Sometimes I forget there are 15 volcanoes surrounding me, five of them active, one of which destroyed my cousin’s home. Auntie Mel blamed Pele. I told her the gods have better things to do.

Grandpa started forgetting too. Not where we lived: who I was. Be a good son and bring me some of those cream horns from Komoda Bakery. I didn’t mind and I never corrected him. We’d eat off paper plates—powdered sugar everywhere until my mustache matched his—watch Japanese dramas I didn’t understand and argue over the blaring TV.

Astrotalk.com tells me it wasn’t my fault, it was Mercury’s—the planet that rules communication. It’s the closest to the sun and the fastest in our solar system, symbolizing how quickly things change. I still don’t know what retrograde means, but I know it’s fucked up and that’s why Grandpa and I don’t speak anymore.

I sit on the doorstep and scoop out fresh liliko‘i with my tongue, nectar trickling down my Viśuddha––throat chakra in Sanskrit. Another spiral from another night. Except now it’s morning and I think mine is blocked because it’s hard to breathe. I watch Mr. Yamaguchi ducking under clothes lines and shooing stray cats. One day I’ll fling my clothes to the red dirt and join them: sprint down Haleakalā Highway until my paws bleed, poison myself eating roadkill, find out if I have nine lives.

Until then, I’ll lick my lips and watch the sugarcane fields burn. I’ll wait for Mercury to rise. I’ll wait for permission to cry.

Take a Sip of the Stars

It’s 9 AM and someone is already in line. From the back it looks like Benji Sakamoto, buying a handle of vodka. I’m clutching a six-pack myself and remember Benji in high school––a washboard dipped in bronze, ripped from battling waves instead of biology. A specimen I’d recognize anywhere, even after all these years.

He used to have more hair, didn’t he? And the Benji Sakamoto I knew never paid to quench his thirst. At parties, the girls would turn into coconuts for free; rolling and sloshing across the lanai, cracking open their brown skulls for a chance to be drained by his lips. Or so I’d heard. I was busy at home, carving Hazel Sakamoto into my desk.

I run a hand through my own waves—gunmetal strands that fall without a sound—turn and walk down the beauty aisle. Most of the hair dyes have natural in the name and unnatural faces on the box, smiling and frozen in time. My sister said I should freeze mine. She even offered to pay for it; her dermatologist does the best Botox on the island. As identical twins, I think she felt bad we no longer matched.

The collection is called Universal Nudes, because it’s cheap and looks good on everyone. Sorry, Auntie, an employee says, as he reaches past me to restock a shade. This one is called Starry Night and the woman looks like she walked out of a painting.

I toss her on the counter, along with some breath mints. The cashier smiles and doesn’t ask for my ID. She looks the same age as my niece, young enough to be studying, or off caramelizing under some palm trees, while a boy licks his lips and tells her how sweet she is. When she tells me the total my face burns, and I’m glad Benji isn’t here to see. Just the beer please. 

The air outside burns too. A new color, Sugarcane Ash, coating my hair and every windshield.

I climb into the company pickup truck and pop open a beer, before realizing I grabbed a stout by mistake. Still, I take a sip and it tastes like chocolate. I spill, and it’s darker than I imagined.

Escape to a Burning Moon

After my open-heart surgery, the doctor said I’d never travel or climb Lanikai Pillbox again. I asked him if we could cut down on the blood-thinners, swap one pill box for another. My wife didn’t like that. For chrissakes Ed, do you want to die? So here I am, peeling papaya with a butter knife.

When afternoon arrives, so does Cruiser—a 17-year-old pitbull from next door, eyes clouded with milk and crusted with sleep—for our daily digestion walk. I ruffle his ears and look towards the giant pineapple floating in the distance, flanked by smoke. I lace up. How about a little adventure, huh boy?

The last half mile is uphill so I take breaks and brain photos. That’s what my grandson calls them. He says it’s better than Sudoku. It’s prettier too, the sloping valleys of red-orange plumerias; inhaling their sweet flames, searing them into my mind. I rip one off its stem and put it in my pocket, because sometimes I worry, and everyone loves a souvenir.

The giant pineapple isn’t actually floating, but supported by steel legs. It’s a water tower built for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company’s sprinkler system in case of a fire. Which reminds me of last night’s dream, where I watched my house burn down from the inside.

Now the smoke has me coughing. I sit down to catch my breath and watch a man climb the water tower, his yellow hard hat bobbing against a sky gone salmon––fluid and quick, as if he’s swimming upstream. Another worker arrives then and asks to pet Cruiser. Her name is Hazel, smells like beer, but still manages to lug a bucket of epoxy up the water tower––weightless and free, as if she’s climbing to the moon. Maybe that’s all that separates us, liquid drops we call courage.

As I begin my descent, I can still hear the two of them: laughing from another planet, drilling into golden flesh, filling craters in me.

© Variant Literature Inc 2023