A Volcano Of Sorts
Matt S Stemerman

 

As the plane hits down on the grass covered landing strip, Tariq’s head jerks forward and smacks the seat in front of him. He puts his hand over his head and rubs it for a minute. Tariq gets out of the plane before Shaira and he pauses in front of the plane to take in the landscape. A lush green forest covers the hillside and mountains. The small hotels and buildings look like a little girl’s playhouse compared to the landscape. Tariq looks at the shore line which is white sand and turquoise colored water. He looks down the coast of the island and his vision is clashed by the darkness of a mountain lurking behind clouds.

“That’s Mauna Loa, it’s a volcano,” Tariq says to Shaira.

Clouds cover the majority of the volcano; the only visible part looks like a huge jagged rock.

Tariq and Shaira get a cab and go to their hotel, the Mauna Lani Resort. They open the door to their honeymoon suite and light brown wood flooring immediately meets their feet. The room is a suite on the top floor. The marble flooring leads to a green carpet with Hawaiian flowers all over it. Two green suede couches are on top of the carpet and a dark red wood coffee table sits in front of them. In front of the table is an entertainment style made out of dark red wood with golden handles. Next to the entertainment center is a sliding door that leads to the balcony which also connects to the master bedroom. Tariq immediately throws his bags next to the couch and heads out to the balcony.

“It doesn’t get any better than this. I can’t believe I’m in Hawaii,” he says.

“Yeah, I can’t imagine that view,” Shaira says.

The balcony’s view leads down the coast and into the volcano. The clouds surrounding it are darker than before, and more of it is hidden.

Tariq and Shaira go into the master bedroom to unpack and see how nice the rest of the room is. The master bedroom has a king sized bed with a Hawaiian flower comforter and pillows that cover half of the bed. Tariq unpacks his things and puts them in the drawers to the right of the bed and Shaira puts her things in the drawers to the left of the bed. They go into the bathroom to check out the final piece of the suite.

 “Oh my god! You mean we take baths in that thing. I’ve never seen anything like this in a bathroom, maybe outside a house but never inside the bathroom,” Shaira says.

“Well, I guess we know why it’s called a honeymoon suite huh?”

“Yeah, this is incredible.”

“You wanna go get something to eat?”

“Sure, I’m pretty hungry.”

Tariq and Shaira go down to the restaurant in the hotel. Shaira orders penne pasta with shrimp in a lemon-butter sauce. Tariq orders Huli Huli chicken, which is grilled chicken with a pineapple sauce. After eating and a few glasses of wine Tariq and Shaira go back up to their room and go to sleep.

Tariq and Shaira both live in a small town outside of Orlando, Florida called Oviedo. Tariq has been a geography professor at the University of Central Florida for a few years. Shaira is a receptionist in the Peabody Hotel in Orlando, but told Tariq she would give it up to become a stay at home mom. Their marriage was arranged by their fathers. Shaira’s father is good friends with Tariq’s father and they decided to wed them.

A beam of light comes through the shades on the windows and hits Tariq in his eyes. He tries to open his eyes but he can only see a white light. Tariq turns over and feels Shaira’s arm move. Tariq looks at his chest and sees Shaira’s arm laying on it. Tariq jumps out of bed and Shaira wakes up.

“What’s the matter Tariq? Did you have a bad dream?”

“No! Why the hell is your arm around me? You don’t even know me.”

“Tariq, what’s wrong with you? Were you not at the wedding?”

“Well it’s not like I picked you to be my wife, it was just arranged that way. It’s not my fault my dad believes in that crap. I just want to go-”

Before, Tariq can finish his sentence; the volcano overpowers him as it roars over the island. The windows shake as if someone’s fist were pounding on them. Shaira jumps into Tariq’s arms. The rumble only lasts for a few seconds, but after it’s over the streets are filled with sounds of ambulance and police sirens.

“What the hell is going on with that volcano Tariq?”

“I don’t know. I just hope that this isn’t a sign of things to come.”

Later that day, Tariq and Shaira are walking down the beach. Shaira was wearing sandals, but now she is carrying them. The sand is hot, but she is walking where the water just barely creeps up on her feet. The turquoise water is cooler than the sand and is refreshing for her hot feet. They are walking in the direction of the volcano.

“Why aren’t you walking beside me,” Tariq says.

“Because of what you said back in the hotel. Do you expect me to just forget about that?”

“I don’t know what came over me, I just feel like I know nothing about you. I know who you are, but I wanna know about things in your past that made you who you are now.”

“Well I wanna know stuff about your past too. I’m just as confused as you are Tariq.”

Tariq and Shaira keep walking down the beach; finally they reach a walking trail that leads through a forest. Tall shrubs and small trees make up the forest, the soil is wet and unfamiliar animal noises fill the air. They walk on the trail for a few minutes and then Shaira starts to walk through shrubs and kneels down.

“What’s wrong Shaira? Are you ok?”

“I’m fine; I just want to rest for a minute.” Shaira utters something under her breath.

“What was that Shaira? You wanna say that a little bit louder.”

“Nothing Tariq, just let it go.”

“What do you think of me?”

“I don’t know. You just get caught up on things that aren’t a big deal. You have a good heart and good intentions you just over react.”

“Yeah, well I don’t like how you just expect me to accept you. I don’t understand why you just won’t-”

The volcano starts to tremble again. This time, the rumble turns into a slight earthquake and Shaira loses her footing and slips down the trail. Tariq runs after her and helps her off of the ground.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Why did we have to pick the weekend when the volcano goes crazy. I thought you said this volcano is inactive.”

“Well, the last major eruption occurred in 1950 and then there was a minor one in ’75. I guess you could say it’s one of the more active volcanoes. But I figured if it has had that much activity then it would be a lot more inactive now.”

“I can’t take this. I just wanna go back.”

Tariq and Shaira walk back to the hotel. They stop at the hotel’s bar on the beach and get a few Mai Tai’s.

“You know that even if the volcano were to erupt, we wouldn’t get anything here,” the bartender says. “Back in ’75, the only thing that happened here was a minor earthquake, it was probably a little worse than the one we just had, but nothing to be scared about.”

Tariq looks out at the volcano, a little more of it is now visible. The clouds have started to dissipate. It is now a little clearer to Tariq what is going on with it. Tariq and Shaira slowly walk back into the hotel.

A few hours later, while Shaira is in the shower getting ready for the night, Tariq is on the balcony staring out at the volcano. Tariq hears the bathroom door open and runs over to Shaira.

“Is there anything I can get for you?”

“Yeah, can you turn around? I don’t know if you should see me in a towel just yet. You’ve been flipping out on me all day and now you ask me if I need anything. Maybe I need just a little space for the rest of the night.”

“Oh yeah, you want space? I finally try and help you with something and then you explode on me. What do you know about me? What is one thing you can tell me that makes me unique? How bout the fact that when I was sixteen I was in love with a girl down the street from me and I told her that I would always be with her, but then her dad found out and he told her that she can’t date ‘those’ kinds of people. Do you have any idea of how that feels Shaira, not being able to love the one person you actually care about?”

“Yeah, I do. I liked a lot of boys in high school and my dad always told me not to because he was finding me someone. I was never allowed to fall in love with someone I wanted to fall in love with. I don’t know what it feels like to be loved. And I figured maybe my dad found me the right person this time. But I don’t know what to think after today.”

“Fine, if that’s how you feel and you want your own space, I guess I may as well pack my things and leave.”

Tariq storms out of the room without packing anything. He goes down to the concierge’s desk and asks when the next plane is leaving. The concierge tells him that the next plane doesn’t leave for another two hours. Tariq gives the concierge two hundred dollars and tells him that he needs to be on that plane. Tariq goes back upstairs to the room. Tariq is packing his things while Shaira is in the bathroom crying. Tariq storms into the bathroom to grab the last of his things when he sees Shaira sitting in the shower crying.

“Don’t go Tariq! Please don’t leave me like this. Why are you leaving me?”

“What does it matter to you, you said you wanted space. Well here’s your chance to have it. I guess we weren’t meant to be together after all.”

Tariq storms out and heads back down to the concierge’s desk. He asks him how much longer before the plane is here. The concierge tells him that the plane is about to land and you need to catch a cab back to the landing strip. Tariq heads outside and gets a cab. After almost twenty minutes, Tariq finally reaches the landing strip. He heads toward the plane, but the volcano starts to rumble again. Tariq slips, but picks himself up and runs over to the pilot.

“I guess I made it just in time.”

“Yeah you did. Is it just you, because we can’t take any more weight?”

Tariq pauses for a moment. He sets his bags on the ground. The volcano is now causing an earthquake throughout the island. The plane in front of Tariq is shaking. The earthquake finally stops. Just as Tariq begins to say something, the volcano erupts. Lava spews out of the volcano like a science experiment gone wrong. Tariq looks up at the lava exploding everywhere and suddenly everything is blurred for him.

He remembers when his father told him that he found him a wife. Tariq put up a fight and said he would never do that. His father said that if it weren’t for his arranged marriage he would’ve never found his wife and soul mate. His father also said that he hated his dad at first two and that things with his wife were very shaky at the beginning but then as time went on they finally got to know each other and fell in love.

The volcano is now causing an earthquake throughout the island. The plane in front of Tariq is shaking. The earthquake finally stops.

Tariq turns to the pilot, “I can’t go. Just go without me.”

Tariq runs back to the street and finds a cab, “I need to go back to the Mauna Lani Resort.”

“Listen man, this volcano just erupted, I’m going home.”

“I can give you however much money you want, just get me to that hotel.”

The cab driver takes Tariq back to the hotel and Tariq flies out of the cab and into the hotel and back up to the room.

“Shaira?! Where are you?”

“I’m in the shower.”

Tariq runs into the shower and grasps Shaira.

“What the hell happened out there Tariq? Where did you go?”

“The volcano, it just erupted out of nowhere.”

Tariq and Shaira run back into the bedroom and close the sliding glass door to the balcony so that nothing comes in the room. They both stare out toward the volcano and start to see stuff falling from the air. Some of this stuff lands on the balcony and Tariq goes out to see what it is.

“What is it Tariq?”

“Its volcanic ash, it’s really dirty.”

The volcanic ash encompasses the sky and turns the Waning Gibbous Moon into a New Moon. The white sand beach looks like an ash tray in a bar, and the once green palm trees now look like they were burned in a forest fire.

“I guess we’re gonna be stuck in here for the night Shaira.”

A few hours later, Tariq and Shaira are lying in bed. The sky is still in complete darkness.

“Why can’t I just fall in love? Why does it all have to be so complicated?”

“I want the same thing Shaira; I just can’t fall in love with someone without knowing them.”

Tariq tells Shaira the story of his first love, when the girl’s father said that she can’t date “those” kinds of people.

“Ever since then, I have been really hard on the girls I fall in love with because it seems too good to be true all of the time.”

Shaira turns to Tariq and tells him how her dad never really let her love any man and that it was always going to be his decision on who she loves.

“I just think it’s so unfair; all my life I’ve searched for love and it’s been denied by the one man who should be praising it. I just want him to be out of my life and let me love someone.”

“But he is out of your life now. Now you can start to love someone.”

Shaira turns to Tariq and smiles, “You know, that’s the smartest thing you’ve said on this whole honeymoon.”

“You know something Shaira; I probably would’ve never met you if it weren’t for our dads. I always knew you were Abduhl’s daughter but I never really knew much more than that. Maybe part of this ideology of arranged marriages is so that you can get to know someone really well and then fall in love with them, rather than getting married and loving them and then later down the road finally getting to know them by something bad happening. Maybe it’s really not as bad as we think it is.”

Shaira lifts Tariq’s arm up and squeezes her body into his hold. They fall asleep on the floor by the window where the ash has stopped falling.

The next morning Tariq and Shaira are awakened by a loud banging on the door. Tariq walks to the door and opens it. A security tells Tariq that everything is over now and you can go outside but everything is covered in ash. Tariq and Shaira go down to the lobby. Everything that was once so beautiful and vibrant is now all dead and lackluster. Tariq goes over to the concierge and asks when a plane will be arriving but the concierge tells him that the plane will be for ones who are most in need. Tariq slips the concierge a hundred dollar bill and says that he better be on that list.

Tariq and Shaira go back upstairs and pack their belongings. Just before leaving the room, they both look out the balcony and toward the volcano. They see that the lava has made its way down the volcano and into the ocean. The hot lava meets the cool ocean water and steam rises.

Tariq turns to Shaira and says, “Now after awhile, the hot lava will cool down and harden. It will one day, create a new land and maybe even a new world.”

 

 

Copyright © 2006 Matt S Stemerman
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"