WAHI: KĀNEʻOHE
The wailing and screaming nearly drowned out the sound of the torrential rains as it flooded the green grass and the red earth of the Hawaiian Memorial Cemetery. The large canopy was supposed to shield Jodi Kalilikāne and her family from the deluge while the pastor gave his last rites.
However, the Apuakea winds appeared suddenly and caused the rain to fall sideways, thus soaking everyone under the tent. Undeterred, the pastor continued with his prayers as the casket containing the body of Jodyʻs three-year-old brother Kyle was slowly lowered into the open pit that would receive his remains. The little one had choked to death when he swallowed a small piece of a LEGO toy that became lodged in his throat. By the time Jodi’s mother found the baby, he had already turned blue, and his body was completely lifeless. The only other person that was home at the time was Jodi’s brother Richard, who was six years old.
~
The reception at the house after was exhausting; there were too many people to host and too many condolences. The well-wishers finally left at ten in the evening, an hour later, Jodi and her mother were too beat up emotionally to clean up. Instead, they sat at the dinner table, sipping on wine and crying. Initially, the two women thought that it was their state of being that caused them to hallucinate the vision which appeared before them just outside the kitchen foyer. It was Kyle dressed in his little Lord Fauntleroy suit that he was buried in. He held his hand out in a fist and then opened his palm. In it was a small blue LEGO with eight dots on it, his fingers slowly closed around the toy piece, and then he walked off. Jodi and her mother jumped out of their chairs, hysterically, screaming in fear and disbelief. They were horrified as Kyle's ghost continued to make appearances whenever the two women were together in the house, always showing them the blue leggo piece that looked like the one which caused him to choke to death. A month later, Jody's mother was working late at her job at Costco, so she was forced to assume babysitting duties. She watched television while her brother Richard sat on the floor playing with his LEGO collection. Her attention was distracted when she heard Richard coughing and gagging, that's when she saw Kyle's ghost forcing the blue LEGO piece into Richard's mouth. His face was turning blue, and Richard couldn't fight back even though he was three times Kyle's size. Just before the six-year-old was about to pass out, Kyle slapped him on the back, and the LEGO came flying out. Kyle faded into nothing, and Jodi grabbed Richard and picked him up in her arms and ran out of the house. She drove to Costco in Hawaii Kai, where she waited until her mother got off of work.
~
"Tell mom, what you told me, Richard, tell her," Jodi said softly.
"Kyle and I were playing IHOP; he didn't want to finish his pancakes, so I made him eat it, the way you make me eat my vegetables," Richard said.
"What do you mean?" Richard's mom asked.
"You get mad, and you shove the pancakes in my mouth," Richard buried his head in his sister's shoulder and cried.
"The LEGO's were the pancakes," Jodi glared at her mother. "Richard was only doing what he saw you do. How could you, Mom? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
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