The Taming

The forecast was rain. It spritzed from the sky like a heavenly matron with plants and a spray bottle. It must have rained all night because the parking lot was flooded. The tallest trees around the resort hotel were pines. They reached the twelfth story while the palms peaked just over the balcony on the eighth. Minus their fronds the palms were bare: someone was hired to shimmy up their skinny trunks and break off the coconuts before they could ripen. Otherwise they'd fall on their own, gravity, someone's head who'd act as the fireman rescue tarp. It had happened before: death by coconut. Falling fronds caused injury too. Fear of lawsuits made the resort palms safe for the kids. And for the public areas the county, each island a county and all of them together a state, there were warnings. Look up, said the signs in the parks, and beware. Nature ain't no theme park.

A great wall, lava rock born in November 1979, transported and stacked, kept the choppy ocean waves out of the resort's bay. It had kayaks, fishing trawlers, and a couple hated jet skis there. On the resort they didn't care for the pervasive gray of the rainy season, they saved their breath for the taming.