When Jerry, an authoritarian professor vacationing in Hawaii, falls in love with a fiercely independent paraplegic woman named Cat,

a tumultuous relationship can be expected. They split in a fiery argument and Jerry flies back to his East Coast life, but their skirmish fades into triviality when a powerful earthquake shakes Hawaii a few days later. Collapsed tunnels and rockslides isolate Kailua, the beach town where Cat lives. Forced out of her aloof self-reliance by the disaster, Cat leads the community in a struggle to procure food and medicines. An extortion scheme against the nearby Marine Corps base or threats of Hawaiian independenceno measure is too outrageous to her. Anxious for her life, Jerry desperately tries to return to Hawaii, but with the airports destroyed his only option is to sail across the winter-storm-whipped Pacific. Whom can they trust? Jerry and Cat have to find out to survive and if they do, maybe they will return to Paradise.

Chapter 1
Cat, January 8 A stiff breeze, customary for this time of year, drove clouds over a darkened beach like an old blanket shredded on thorny bushes and ridden with holes. The faint glow of the moon barely broke through the cover until a tear opened up, letting out a brief burst of colorless light. The nimbostratus glided low over the sand strip, brushed over the black mass of Kailua Park and a few lifeless streets beyond it, until the Kaiwa Range stopped it sternly with its vertical wall. Only there, it dumped the heavy load of moisture on nurseries and gardens at the foothill, pummeling roofs and leaves with big drops. The wind blowing across the beach whistled on sand, muting a low rumble of a shore break, but it was warm and humid like the air escaping through a Laundromats open door. Just another sweet winter night in Kailua, lovers cuddling in shallow sandpits might say; da primo time to share a puff of pakalolo, dark heads would nod, as a glowing point of Maui-wawi joint circled in the blackness from one friendly mouth to another. But there were neither lovers nor potheads nesting in the soft sand. As the clouds broke, the beach below lit up empty and devoid of any human presence. Following a path of drifting cloud break, the moonbeam skimmed over the shoreline like a spotlight, revealing no traces of life. A few seconds later, it slid inland, bringing into sharp relief a jagged row of broken trees. Where a stand of sturdy ironwoods grew last afternoon, faithfully protecting Kailua from the salt-laden trade winds, a field of splintered stumps lay now, some still pointing up, others displaying a black tangle of roots uncovered in final humiliation. Then, a roofless house emerged. Reduced to stained white walls framing empty window holes, it sat crumpled in the middle of a mud puddle, but just next to it a smooth shiny plane unexpectedly lit up. A carport, once attached to the house, had its roof floating high above the ruin like a magic carpet. Its even, glowing surface was marred only by the irregular dark blot in the shape of a big ragdoll carelessly thrown on a roof. Before the darkness wiped the carport out, this black form twitched and its extensions became arms hugging the rough surface.

The creature crawled to the roofs edge and looked down gingerly. The world Cat Milewski knew ceased to exist on that eighth day of January 2011, but she survivedfor now. Staring down, she saw her house transformed into a damp wreck; the whole neighborhood of Beachsideas far as she could see from her perchhad been wiped out as well. Soaked, bruised and exposed to the wind, she shivered uncontrollably. She could not stay on her life-saving rooftop much longer. Given the magnitude of this disaster, the rescue might not arrive for days; waiting was not an option. Fifteen feet above the ground, no rope or ladderstill, she had to come down. Im not dead yet, not quite she muttered stubbornly between chattering teeth, creeping along the edge and dragging her lifeless legs behind. A waterspout. The bent, zinc-plated pipe had been sucked away from the roofs edge by a withdrawing water mountain, but its lower brackets held and it was still attached to the carports pillar. Cat reached for it, closed her eyes and heaved her weight off. The pipe creaked and ripped off in a slow motion, metal straps giving way one after another. She fell into the thick mud with a thud and a groan but, except for a bruise where her back landed on a loose board, she suffered no injury. The ground was evenly covered with the slick muck, hiding splintered wood, twisted metal and broken glass. To crawl in this terrain, in darkness, was asking for cuts and gashes, whichCat had no doubtswould get infected fast. Slowly, carefully feeling her way, she inched toward the remains of her house. A big metal chunk half-buried in the mud and smelling of gas had to be her neighbors motorcycle. What was this big smooth surface stranded where her lawn used to be? She could not guess until a blue glaze shone in the moonlight. Ah, a roof a few tiles still attached. Who had blue tile on his house? She had no idea. Sirens blared far away, but the only sounds close by were the constant whistle of wind and her strained breathing. Following the carports foundation, then a sidewall of the house, Cat managed to slither to her kitchen with only minor scratches on her hands. The door had been blown off, but a large object in the doorway halted her further progress. Smooth metallic surface and a door and a stove! This was her stove stuck sideways in the doorway, standing on one of its corners like a squat clown. She squeezed through the foot-wide gap between the oven and the doorway frame, right at the floor level,

and behind it she encountered her fridge, lying on its back, facing the open sky. She lifted the door and put her arm in, feeling around. The first good newsdespite the violent upheaval leveling the whole neighborhood, her fingers detected some food inside. The wet slab turned out to be a loaf of bread, soaked and dripping salty waterinedible. But a still unopened carton of milk was intact and a package of smoked turkey in plastic bag was good. She ate as much as she could and her teeth-rattling shaking subsided. Food would be scarce in the days to come, she knew, and her supplies would spoil by tomorrow. Wet and shivering, she curled in a dark corner. At least she had time to think now. Most likely, her wheelchair was buried under sand at the reef, and her carif it was even still aroundwas nothing more than a big chunk of scrap metal. She could hear no movement around and it occurred to her that no other living soul might be left in Beachside. Im screwed, she thought. Not something she was prepared to accept sniveling, but there was not much she could do until the morning. She scraped mud off her corners floor with a piece of plastic broken off the fridge and put herself to sleep, thinking of Jerry carrying her in his arms.

Return to Paradise can be purchased at Amazon.com and Barnes &Noble as a paperback and at Google, Smashwords and other e-book sellers in a digital edition. Please, see my other books and articles at BooksbyAlex.com or visit my personal website http://web.me.com/amodzelewski/Site/Welcome.html

Chapter 2
Cat, December 20

Nineteen days earlier, with Christmas quickly approaching, Cat was sitting barefoot, dressed in old shorts and a plain white t-shirt, at her workstation by the window. She stubbornly refused to look out toward the seductive blue water of the bay. The ocean will still be there tomorrow, she reminded herself spitefully, checking every line of her code for the third time. The program seemed to work fine, but that was not good enough; she wanted the very last bug hunted down and fixed. This project was a biggie; the job was worth two months of her work and due for upload before the holidays. The fifteen grand it would bring was certainly welcome, but a neat little pile of greenbacks aside, Cats future business rode on the fact that the software coming from her computer worked perfectly the very second it

was installed. This was exactly the reason why people who had been exasperated by their computer programs would dump their problems onto her lap and cut her a check with joyful relief. In other words, she was making her living due to other programmers sloppy work and her reputation would not be dented by lure of the ocean. The last thing she needed was an irate customer grumbling about her blunders. The humiliation of facing up to her slipup apologies another round of debugging no, definitely she could do without it, thank you very much. Cat did not relent until ten, when her snack was due. She picked slices of papaya with a fork, looking dreamily out toward Kailua Bay. The jumble of rocks in front of her house could hardly be called a beach, but the bays water beyond was emerald and there was no end to it. A mile offshore, a dark rock in the shape of a gothic castle stuck menacingly out of the water like a bad wizards lair in some Polynesian fairy tale. The rock had an official name but Cat could never remember it; for those who had any interest in the islet, it was the Bird Shit Rock, called so for the ubiquitous white deposits sea birds were leaving. Seagulls and shearwaters had this place to themselves because the tumultuous white water surrounded it like a ring of never-ending avalanche, keeping humans out. Big waves arriving from the open ocean tumbled over the gobs of basalt at the Rocks foot, breaking, roaring and twisting in crazy, unpredictable currents. Only Kanaloa, the god of the ocean, could understand the mysterious pathways of whirlpools and sucking holes that meandered stealthily around the Rock, hunting for any breathing creature, ready to grab it and hold it underwater in sacrifice. For a mortal riding a light boat this was a treacherous site, definitely not a safe place to take a spill. A guy in a blue kayak, who came into Cats view during her papaya snack, paddled calmly toward the Rock but was still well away, in the safe waters. Fishing probably, she thought. Lucky man. I am not going to move my butt from here for many hours. She put away her fork, washed her sticky fingers in a water bowl, wiped her hands in tissue and dove again into the computer, exhorting any temptations. The next time she raised her eyes from the monitor, reaching for a big glass of water sitting next to the keyboard, she stole a look at the ocean and noted that the kayaker had lost his relaxed attitude. He paddled toward the beach like hell. Either racing or scared, she concluded,

observing his furious movements for a moment. The island paddlers frequently went around the rock, carefully away from the boiling water, using it as a landmark in their practice routines. In fact, the first race of the season for Kanaka Ikaika, the club she sometimes raced with, looped around the Rock and the Flat Island, an easy ten-mile paddle for the starters. This kayaker was no racer, she decided. And the boat his blue salad bowl was not designed to paddle on the open ocean; this kayak was only good enough to play by the beach with the kids. Cat tried to concentrate on her job for another moment, but alarm bells in her head refused to calm down. She looked again; despite the kayakers vigorous efforts his boat was not any closer to the shore and he was angling toward the whirlpool. Oh, well I might take a break after all, she decided. Just as well Ill go out to check on him. The disruption did not annoy her at all; it was as good an excuse to escape to the ocean as she might hope for. Cat gleefully slid into a bright yellow kayak propped upright by profiled plastic blocks on a rough green platform of treated wood. She settled in the seat, just big enough to accommodate her rather smallish butt, and launched herself toward the water with one mighty shove, sliding along the inclined take-off pad. The hull tipped forward, slipped over props and splashed into the calm water of the canal. Unlike the blue rental boat currently struggling by the Rock, her craft was a long and narrow surfski. Light and stiff, reinforced with carbon fibers, her boat was a proper openocean kayak. She loved her yellow ducky for the dreamlike pleasure of gliding through quiet water, the excitement of skimming the surf like a flying fish, and for its hard-nosed attitude when an occasion arose to take the big waves and wind right on the nose. Cats feeling of high was not just a metaphor; one moment, she could levitate on a wave so high that her eyes could scan the ocean for miles, and a second later she glided off the swells backside like a barracuda. She danced with the ocean, thats how she felt, and she loved to dance. Three years had passed since this affair started, but the thrill still had not worn off. The day she went to rescue the guy in the blue boat was unusual. The trade wind usually blowing from the Mokolua Islands and driving waves to the shorestopped ruffling the bay during the night, and the white surf marking the reef disappeared as well.

But the breeze did not subside, as many tourists thought; it just changed its direction. Now, the current of air gusted from the South Pacific. Hot and strong, it blew over Oahu, withering plants and howling over the mountain passes, until it bumped its head against the Koolau Range. This long vertical curtain of frozen lava, remnant of the great volcano that once helped to raise the island from the depths of the Pacific, stood in front of the Windward Coast, its 3,000-foot-tall wall resolutely protecting the eastern shores. The wind made a long jump over this obstacle to fall onto the water a mile or two farther away, fierce as ever. Cat glided over the glass-smooth surface swiftly like a shearwater looking for fish in the clear water, quickly approaching the Rock and the blue kayak. A few minutes later, when she emerged from the shadow of Koolau, and the kayakers figure separated into his white face, black hair and striped shirt, she sensed the stiff push on her back. The wind was driving her away from the island. White-crested waves suddenly whipped up from the quiet turquoise water in front of her bow. The tourist, even further out than she was, had to fight the gusty wind shoving him away from the coast. He made a valiant effort to control his boat, but the blue kayak defiantly ignored his clumsy attempts; the poor guy had no headway to show for his desperate struggle. Like an empty bucket on deck, he wobbled this way and another, every few seconds hanging precariously on the thin edge of turning upside down. The boat kept turning sideways, exposing the paddler to powerful smacks by waves. Apparently, this guy had no idea about sea kayaking and had no business poking around the Rock. Even worse, he seemed to have decided that the islet was his salvation and was about to enter the area of turbulence. He would be swimming in the boiling kettle pretty soon. Cat leaned on her paddle hard and cut across the dangerous patch of violent white water in order to intercept the guy before he was hopelessly drawn into the vicious pool. Right ahead of him, the powerful whirlpool sucked the foam deep, tempting the unaware with the smooth face of circling water. Disoriented by waves assaulting him from all directions, the man was hanging on, barely. He noticed Cat only when she zoomed across a few yards in front of his bow. To his credit, he understood her intention instantly and caught the line she flung at him on the

first try. For a moment, he was hanging in the balance on the verge of capsizing, but recovered and managed to put the loop over one of his shoulders. Cat threw all her strength into the paddle. Her kayak was shaking like a leaf in the confused countercurrents but kept stabbing its sharp bow viciously into the wild breakers, submerging and raising it arrogantly from the flying foam. Once she towed her catch out of the frothy water a smile appeared on her face. Could be good practice for a kayak sprint, she giggled inwardly. In the quiet water, Cat released the rope cutting into her ribs with a groan of relief, turned her yellow ducky around and approached the man. He had broad shoulders and strong arms but his face was pale like snow in Yosemite, and his brown eyes had the wild look of a spooked horse. Cat felt sorry for him; not only had he been scared out of his mind, but now he was also humiliated by being saved by a woman. And if you knew it all She smiled to herself. She felt like saying something reassuring, like: You cant be good in everything, buddy but nothing smart or appropriate occurred to her. Instead she cut the thank you scene short and went home to keep grinding her project.