Read Ocean: The Awakening for Free Online

he’d been in the water.
    For days, Kimo had not been swimming because he’d been busy at the fruit stand, completing repairs after a palm tree fell and damaged half of the original open-wall structure. With only a young native man, Billie Hama, to help, he’d been rebuilding the stand while keeping the business open, selling fruit and locally-produced bottles of juice to tourists.
    Now he slipped outside into the coolness of the moonlit night, closing the door softly behind him. Still hearing the disturbing sounds, he hurried along a jungle trail that sloped downward and makai —toward the ocean. Visibility was good with a full moon, as if God was shining a light on the jungle path to show him the way. The closer Kimo got to the water, the louder and more disquieting the sounds became.
    He traversed a short, rocky path down to the sandy beach. There, the sounds were quite loud, and the illuminated water looked stormy, with waves slapping the beach and the water roiling, though he felt no wind.
    Just offshore, Kimo saw the forms of marine creatures poking above the waves—the heads and backs of fish, seals, and turtles, as well as the fins of sharks, and huge manta rays that looked like stealth aircraft, along with numerous small, glowing fish that had come up from the depths, where they used their illumination to lure prey. The creatures were thick in the water—some iridescent, others sparkling colors in the moonlight, and all in turmoil. He sensed their pain, heard it in their distress cries—plaintive beeps, vibrations, groans, and croaking signals. Worried, Kimo waded into the water and dove in. The tropical sea was warmer than the night air.
    He swam underwater, remaining just beneath the moon-silvered surface. The creatures of the sea closed in around him, with some of the smaller species nearest, shaping themselves around his body and gliding through the water with him. He sensed their extreme agitation. The sounds they made permeated his brain, and saddened him deeply. On occasion in the past he had been able to heal the physical wounds of aquatic animals, but that did not seem possible for this particular matter. He felt incapable of doing anything for their grievous mental and emotional wounds, didn’t know what was causing all of their discomfort.
    For longer than a man should be able to swim underwater without equipment, Kimo remained submerged, his gills transferring oxygen from dissolved seawater into this bloodstream. Gradually he sensed the creatures growing calmer around him. He wished he knew why they were agitated, and what they expected him to do for them. He couldn’t remain in the water with them forever; he had obligations to his family, a life to lead on the land.
    The moon was still bright when he emerged from the water and waded ashore. His thoughts whirling in confusion and frustration, Kimo sat on the beach and gazed out upon the sparkling water. The marine animals remained out there thick in the waves, still making anguished, though diminished, noises. They seemed a little better, but only a little, and certainly not enough….
    Following his birth in the sea, Kimo’s earliest memories were of being underwater and seeing small and large fish all around him, in bright, shimmering hues. He was a baby swimming beneath the surface in the midst of fish. As time passed, and the fish remained in the tropical sea with him, they made him one of their own, making him feel as if he were a member of every school of fish in the ocean.
    Sometimes the water would glow warm red all around Kimo, whereupon he would sense another presence, sacred and omnipresent, the deity who guided all marine life forms in the sea. From his first moments of awareness he had sensed the mysterious entity protecting him, sheltering him in that warm illumination that came from the depths of the water. One day, a school of flat blue fish had guided the swimming baby down very deep, to a mysterious realm of tunnels and