Lolo Sullivan

Lights of Akahele

Daphne Pierce wonders what being crushed feels like as she drives to her parent’s estate. She’s rented a blue convertible and has the top down to take in the balmy island air of Oahu. On the sides of the narrow dirt road are Coconut Palms and Moluccan albizia trees swaying gently. They remind her of brontosaurus necks and once again she thinks of being crushed. She wonders if the brain shuts down once one understands they are to be crushed. Or perhaps, one dies so quickly that there is nothing, only a glimpse of something coming, something huge—like mountains appearing from a fog. And suddenly, she sees it, the Koolau Mountain Range looming against the sheet of sky, unclothing itself from fog like many breasts erupting from gauzy lace.