Embedded Files
It was most likely not a fatal injury, and if it was, I was not about to announce it because as a father, I am duty bound to ensure that everyone has fun on vacation. This includes, but is not limited to, hiding potentially fatal or zombifying injuries from the family. It is also why I didn’t mention that the temperature light briefly came on in the sweltering 116-degree heat of Big Bend National Park. It is why I didn’t mention the fear that if we didn’t make it home in a couple of days then we would be panhandling for gas in a tiny Appalachian town. It is why I pretended it was just taking a normal roadside pit stop after eating some bizarre local chili concoction and explaining away the extended time spent in the gas station bathroom by fabricating mechanical difficulties with the flushing mechanism or towel dispenser. And it is definitely the reason why I didn’t mention the sea urchin spines that were methodically wending their way through my circulatory system from the big toe of my right foot to my left ventricle where they will surely cause a sudden and fatal heart attack and/or releasing mind altering toxins to bend me their will. Either way it would result in a somewhat abrupt and disconsolate denouement to an otherwise pleasant Hawaiian vacation.
While maintaining levity is my primary avocation on our sojourns, I have been known, on occasion, to become obsessed with other activities. I will become single minded on uphill hikes only to turn to Colette and Evan to point out some natural feature and find that they have stopped several hundred yards back to catch their breath or take a photo of a particularly interesting insect. If there is a relatively risk-free promontory, I will relinquish the backpack and head off to be photographed. And as I discovered on our trip to Key West, if there is an opportunity to swim with fishes, then I will be lost for hours until my back is as red as a Carolina Reaper with the accompanying searing burn.
So it was with great anticipation that we headed off on a Hawaiian vacation. We landed in Honolulu and spent a couple of hours getting the rental car and looking for the entrance to the budget hotel we had booked for that night before we would head to the North Shore. The next morning was spent eating spam and eggs at McDonalds and touring the Pearl Harbor National Memorial.
McDonald's Around the World
By lunchtime were were heading to the North Shore of Oahu where we were staying at the Malaekahana Beach Campground. Unlike the Brady Bunch who hung around Waikiki to surf and fight with Vincent Price over tiki idols, we had secured a Plantation Hale (haw-lay) or beach hut with no electricity or plumbing. What the accommodations lacked in amenities they more than compensated for with tranquility. We had access to bathroom facilities and an outdoor beach shower. Our hammocks were secured to nearby trees, though when unoccupied they acted more as sails than hammocks. The tenants of the neighboring hale, who were obviously locals as I suspect most of the denizens of the campground were, welcomed us with a papaya. That evening I went to a grocery store in the nearby town of Laie to purchase snorkels and masks. If this were an actual travel essay, I would describe Laie as a quaint town full of local color, charming eateries and stunning vistas, but this was just a strip mall near a McDonald’s that we frequented because we spent most of our budget getting to the island to begin with. So I loaded up on Cheez-Its, Pop Tarts and the aforementioned snorkels and masks and headed back to the cabin.
The purchase of the snorkel was the first step on the journey of the purplish black striations in my big toe burrowing into my psyche as they surely burrowed their way into my bloodstream. Reminiscent of the prehistoric sentient black oil on The X-Files, it would enter my toe and begin its mind altering journey intent on subsuming my conscious mind and most certainly killing me in the process.
We didn’t have much of a plan other than to hang out in paradise, but I had my GoPro and was determined to document the underwater wonder of tropical fish that was only a fading memory from our trip to Key West. Rarely do I make demands on vacation, but we were going snorkeling. The woman at the campground store suggested that we go to Kuilima Cove. It is a resort, but there is public access to the beach. We were some of the first people to arrive, so there was still plenty of parking near the beach. After setting up our towels and backpack an appropriate distance from the water, I retrieved the GoPro from the side pocket. The battery was dead. I had traveled 4,000 miles only to have no photographic evidence of my undersea adventure. My only hope was to get enough charge from the car that I would be able to get a few pictures that day, so I trekked back to the rental and plugged the camera in. I managed to patiently snorkel for thirty minutes sans camera, and then was overjoyed that the GoPro turned on when I returned to the car. Other than sunburned shoulders the rest of the day was without incident.
However, the next day would not be so fortunate as my mind slowly came under the control of the alien substance injected into my hallux (Look it up. I did.) by the seemingly benign yet truly malignant echinoderm. I would surely be featured on News 5 at 5. “Local man vacationing in Hawaii has been hospitalized with a mind altering infection. Doctors have yet to diagnose a cause of the infection and have induced a coma in order to slow the progression.”
Malaekahana Beach Campground is an absolutely gorgeous respite from the Cheesecake Factory, UGG shop, five-dollar t-shirt tourist hell of Waikiki Beach. We had a nice quiet place to stay on the beach, but we were also within a ten minute drive of several places to eat. One night we tried Seven Brothers because they were listed as some of the best burgers on the Island. They were good, but what was truly wonderful was the shaved ice next door at Wili Wili. Heaping orbs of ice, the texture of a well packed snowball, were served to us in the enormous plastic flower cups. I am always interested in exotic flavors, sometimes this goes wrong as was the case when I ordered an avocado milkshake at a Pan-Asian restaurant, but other times I am pleasantly surprised like when I ordered taro boba milk tea. Listed on the menu were several of the standard flavors: tiger blood, cotton candy, watermelon, root beer, lemon lime, and blue Hawaii. The very last flavor on the menu was a word that I had never heard, haupia. Haupia is a traditional coconut milk dessert in Hawaii. It was the perfect flavor for the shaved ice. Later at a luau I would have the real thing which was amazing, but it is the shaved ice that I would hop on a plane to have tomorrow.
When we returned to the hale, I was tasked with the evening ritual of recharging all of the cameras and phones. There was a power strip outside the camp store for such purposes, so I took my book and headed to the power source. Sitting in the other chair next to the outlet was a woman with rather questionable tattoos and a look on her face that indicated that she was a talker. The conversation began with a discussion of Arkansas or Oklahoma because she had ink on her thigh indicating a connection to that state. Her man was in Hawaii laying or stringing cable, and she was availing herself of paradise. A little too aggressively, however, since the outline of her home state or college mascot or whatever it was that adorned her upper leg was grossly distorted by an inflamed knobby burl. It became obvious that I was staring at it, and not in a “I am a leg man” kind of way. She had attempted surfing and tumbled across some coral causing several abrasions.
“It’s just some coral cuts,” she said, “but they became infected.”
She was currently on a course of antibiotics to prevent the spread of the subsequent infection.
In Invaders From Mars a young boy, probably named Jimmy because all kids in the fifties were named Jimmy, is awakened by a landing spacecraft. The next morning his loving father goes to investigate. He is seen heading over the horizon along a fence bordering a sand pit. He returns as an abusive automaton with a bizarre scar on his neck. It is revealed that he has been abducted by the aliens and outfitted with suspiciously unscientific alien tech to gain control of his faculties. When I saw this movie as a child I had nightmares for weeks convinced that my family and friends were not who they said they were. Now that dread resurfaced in a much more personal way. Was I going to be that father with a scar on my big toe where the alien probe had implanted a crystalline mind control device using a platinum needle? Would I continue the facade of a vacation only to truly be carrying out the nefarious plans of the alien sea life for dominion over the mammals?
The coral cuts are a lot like the scrapes one gets from the rough concrete bottom of a public pool. Luckily public pools have enough chlorine to bleach wayward amphibians into floating ghost toads, so the chance of infection is slim. Nature provides no such protection. It was with this knowledge festering in my frontal cortex and paranoia tickling my amygdala that I made another foray into the forest of coral to pry into the private lives of fish. Colette had done some research and found Laniakea Beach, better known as turtle beach. While I was content to chase fish like a toddler chasing pigeons in the park, Colette was after a bigger game. She wanted to see sea turtles. Admittedly, the prospect of capturing a swimming sea turtle on the GoPro was quite exciting. The problem was that I was on a short leash since my near drowning death in Delaware. When we are on the road and Colette suddenly screams out a warning, she assures me it is because she does not trust other drivers, and that she has the utmost confidence in my driving abilities. This is not the case with the ocean. Clearly she does not trust the ocean, but just as clear is her mistrust of my judgment, and I really can’t blame her. It was this recent history of being sucked out to sea that induced Colette to, every two minutes or so as my head popped above the surface, remind me to not go out too far. Filming the marine reptiles while in the water would be difficult if I was not allowed to swim out further than ten yards.
I felt an irritation not from the subcutaneous black barbs of the urchin, but in that part of the mind that causes groans of exasperation, vexed forehead wrinkles, and nerve scraping anger. Feelings that I would normally attribute to a lack of caffeine were manifesting despite constant access to the stimulating effects of the coffee bean. I was clearly becoming someone, or something else. Perhaps this was going beyond a simple hijacking of my will. Would I eventually transform into a horrible thorny monster bent on destruction only to be obliterated by flamethrower wielding members of the U.S. military? A soldier, listed in the credits only as Private Flamethrower costumed in war surplus would put his foot up on a tide worn basalt deposited on the shore by an ancient pyroclastic flow, light a cigarette, and say, “If only he had listened to his wife.” The camera then pans to my spiny remains buffeted by the surf as the sound of the crashing waves is replaced by the melancholic coda of the movie’s score.
I was content for a while to chase Moorish idols, reef triggerfish, Achilles tang, tiger moray eels, spotted boxfish, and trumpet fish, but I kept imagining capturing the aquatic majesty of the green sea turtle. Though obsessed with the denizens of the reef, I did occasionally become aware that other humans were present. Two such individuals informed me that they saw a turtle swimming in. I quickly swam over the reef to see what I could see. While I blame most of my hesitancy on Colette’s constant warnings, I will admit to a slight trepidation as I briefly venture out beyond the point of being able to safely stand. I was not out there long because despite what I had been led to believe by the many nature documentaries that I had watched, turtles swim fast, at least faster than me. When I surfaced I saw that people had gathered on the beach, their faces obscured by cameras and phones. Others were only viewed from the backside as they attempted selfies with the turtle. I began to swim back in with ease, but memories of my near drowning still pressed every panic button, flipped every panic lever, and cranked every panic dial, so that as soon as was reasonable I stretched my foot to make contact with the seafloor. This particular portion of seabed reached out to meet my toes for it was the resting place for black sea urchin.
The Killer Inside Me
After my seaside demise my demeanor changed. Colette and Evan merely register it as my regular vacation crabiness which has become a family joke especially when near the ocean. “Hey Dad, it’s you,” Evan says pointing to a crab scooting across the sand. What they don’t notice is that I am now constantly keeping my hands at ten and two, eyes locked on the road ahead. Is this the pointy creature taking over my mind, or a flight response to imagined ills? My responses to their queries about our destination answered in an eerie monotone that if I were in a movie would only be noticed by the audience, but since I am in real life it is ridiculously irritating to my family.
“Where we going?” Colette asks.
“You will see,” I respond monotonically and monosyllabically. The alien presence renders me incapable of using contractions.
It is clear from the oscillating dilation and contraction of my eyes that I am struggling to regain control of my conscious mind.
“Dad what’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. Just sit back and be quiet. It will all be over . . . uh we will be there soon.”
Deep within the folds of gray matter being poisoned by the inky darkness of the urchin, I am struggling to get a word out. If I can only get Colette to look at my calves which the urchin has covered with tube sock pulled fully up, she would see the branching blackness tracing its message of doom from the dorsal digital vein to the deep plantar and clawing its way up the anterior tibial artery.
Metaphor
Reflexively I jerked my foot away and grabbed my toe as if I could strangle the pain.
Perhaps if I had maintained the stangle hold, the spread would have stopped.
Panic ensued immediately. What should I do? Do I have to pee on this or is that only jellyfish stings? Was this a sting even? Are sea urchins poisonous? Or is this like a splinter that my mother always warned would wend its way via the circulatory system to my heart? What about infection? I don’t know where this sea urchin had been. If I have been poked by a street urchin, infection would definitely be a concern.
I swam and hopped my way to the beach, careful not to place weight on the affected foot for fear of driving the invader deep along its subcutaneous passage. Flopping on the sand, I tossed the GoPro aside and grabbed my right foot pulling it as close to my sight as possible. Held in place by my left knee, I twisted my ankle as far as the tendons would allow and peered at the three evenly spaced black streaks adorning my toe like an amateur attempt at a henna tattoo, though the details were sketchy because I had left my readers back in the car.
I wanted to see the turtle, but I was also concerned that I had just been selected for an all inclusive stay at one of Hawaii's finest hospitals.There was a woman with some authority roping off access to the turtle so I decided to ask her about my injury, but she turned out to just be a volunteer with little knowledge of the dangers the tropical paradise. I informed Colette, but she was occupied with taking one hundred fifty-five pictures of her new acquaintance. I was left to my own imagination and the machinations of the Internet to diagnose my condition.
A quick search turned up this rather alarming information from surfertoday.com,
“An infection caused by a venomous” VENOMOUS! “sea urchin will trigger several abnormal” ARE THERE NORMAL SYMPTOMS? “symptoms, including dizziness, breathing problems, chest pain, heart rate changes, loss of consciousness, nausea, and vomiting.
In the worst-case scenario,” WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY THE CASE WE ARE DEALING WITH. “the venom will enter the bloodstream and cause death. And yes, people have already lost their lives after stepping on a sea urchin sting.” THANKS INTERNET!
Luckily they also offered a simple solution: tweezers, a vinegar foot bath, and ibuprofen. All of which have been known to stave off death. While I have gamed out several zombie apocalypse scenarios over the years, I had not yet planned for Sigmund the Sea Urchin.
The surreptitious toe checking would commence. Every private moment I was secretly checking my toe for inflammation and pus. This was of course the urchin's method. Distract the victims with superficial infection anxiety while releasing multiple milliliters of neurotoxin into the bloodstream. The Oklahoman woman’s visage floated before my eyes. “It’s just some coral cuts, just some coral cuts, just some coral cuts. Coral cuts.” Her red, swollen, pus oozing thigh throbbing until it became an all consuming image.
I considered going to the same store at which I had purchased the snorkels and Cheez-Its to buy some vinegar and tweezers. But how was I going to explain my sudden urge to take a vinegar foot bath? I had told Colette about the urchin incident, but had not hinted at my concern about infection and possible death or worse. Rushing to the store for medical supplies would surely alert her to how serious I thought the situation was. Maybe I could convince her I had a sudden interest in molecular gastronomy. That evening I was able to occasionally sneak a peek at my toe. While the black streaks were clearly visible like a series of dots and dashes sending a message of doom, there was no redness or swelling. Perhaps I would escape unscathed.
“Nope.”
The next morning nothing much had changed,
“Are you sure?”
We went back and had more shaved ice at Evan’s urging, though if I am being honest, there was no argument from us. We went to a luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center dining on poke, poi, and haupia. We started on a hike, but afternoon rain led to concerns about the safety of the camera. We drove back to Waikiki to stay at a sketchy hotel. Actually the hotel was not that bad, but the howling homeless man being hauled in by five-o was not the aloha we were expecting. We visited a farmer’s market and ate at Bao Bites home to Hawaii’s Original Bao-Nuts. Evan and I hiked to the top of Diamond Head. We strolled around Waikiki Beach and took a picture with the Duke Kahanamoku statue and had a beer at the Maui Brewing Company. The distractions were nice and perhaps the beer would numb my fears.
“Good luck with that.”
Eventually we boarded our flight, but did not head home. We had a whole other vacation planned starting in Seattle and ending with a drive through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Nebraska.
The mind altering parasite was along for the ride. It was there when we hiked in Olympic National Park and at Craters of the Moon. It gazed in wonder at Old Faithful through my eyes. The dull pain of the subdermal needles reminding me of their presence as I crept as close as I dared to snap a picture of a reclining bison. Did I return to St. Louis the same as I left? Was I now under the inexorable control of an alien pincushion? Am I in control of my mind? Was I ever? Are these the ramblings of a spiny symbiote or the musings of a massively paranoid middle-aged man?
Late at night when everyone has gone to bed, I will slip off my sock, or just peer at my big toe as it sticks out the hole in my Hanes tube sock. Before getting in the shower in the morning, I take a seat on the toilet, lifting my foot to take a gaze. Sometimes I still think that I see those three dark lines, but at others they are gone. Somewhere on a beach in Hawaii my old self has mingled with a sea urchin nestled in the crevice between two rocks scraping algae with my beak-like mouth.
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