They were the typical tourists looking for adventure in a place that they'd never been to before. They were filled with wide-eyed enthusiasm but had no real plan or direction for what they would do. When they told me they would go wherever the wind took them, I felt a tinge of concern. Normally, I would have laughed in their faces and walked away. That mindset pretty much tells me that no matter how much wisdom I try to impart to them, they will disregard it and do whatever they want. "Here," I handed the talker of the group my business card. "If you hit a snag, or run into any difficulty, call me."
"I'm sure we won't have to," the talker laughed. "But, we'll keep it if we need to find a good lūʻau!"
With that, the talker, the goof, and the muscle head disappeared into the further depths of Kapiolani park, carrying everything they owned in their backpacks. A few days later, an article surfaces in the papers, social media, and the news. Three hikers are found wedged into a crevice in the further recesses of Palolo Valley. When the three are finally pulled out by emergency crews, they are dead. Some of my contacts called me because they found my business card in the pocket of one of the deceased. He said the three had frozen expressions on their faces as if they had each died of fright. He showed me the photographs in confidence. It was the talker, the goof, and the muscle head. No one knows why they were trying to inch their way into a crevice in the side of Palolo valley until their bodies were removed. It turns out that it wasn't a crevice but an entrance to a burial cave. It was storming suddenly, and the three were looking for a place to get in out of the rain. The question is, what did they see that literally frightened them to death? My guess is that only the 'iwi kupuna could tell us, but that's something we will never know anytime soon.
photo credit: The Grunge.
No comments:
Post a Comment