From Sand to Nand

Chapter Twenty

The first child born on Caranos had been named Hope. Hope was of Filipino descent and her parents spoke English, Tagalog, and her mother, Mahalia, spoke broken Mandarin. The doctors weren't entirely sure how much Hope weighed, but using primitive water scales, they estimated the child to be slightly less than 3 kilograms. Originally small with tanned skin and cloudy eyes, she grew to be six months old with impeccable attention to detail. The fog in her eyes eventually dissipated, revealing dark bluish-black pearls that would likely become brown one day.

Mahalia was not shy with Hope and showed the newborn off to all her interested neighbors. In fact, the newborn, and others who succeeded her in birth, were very popular around the community. 14 babies were, while one teen mother lost her life, and two others spent weeks recovering in the apothecary where they remained in critical condition.

Feeding Hope one evening, Mahalia sat watching the sunset far beyond the volleyball competition taking place on the beach. The young teenage teams were playing their last round before the semi-finals of the local tournament, as the adults prepared to compete next. Many of the players' movements were impressively nimble and some plays were garnering applause from the crowd. Mahalia could hear the cheers faintly, even from as far away as she was.

She loved her family and the people she had come to know and grow with on Caranos. Mahalia often wished well of others and strongly believed in karma, which she prayed would make its way back to Hope someday. The last thing the mother wanted was to deprive her daughter of a free life in the real world.

She looked down at the miracle she held in her arms. "I love you," Mahalia whispered with a smile as the indifferent infant smacked its lips around the gland of its mother's teat.

Mahalia continued to speak softly and slowly. "They said they don't want us to go out there. But we have to go. We're going to get you out of here, my baby."

The mother's smile turned to a solemn tear accompanied by a frightened expression. She didn't want her daughter to be raised on Caranos so much that she even asked her husband to consider escaping with their family if the ship's plans failed. "You don't deserve this place."

Thinking she had been joking, Mahalia begged her husband to leave with her the night the two-month building effort had been squandered, shattered by a mistimed release during a shallow tide. The couple fought, as they did most nights. That night, the new parents' conversation was one that many others were having, too. The final verdict every individual household came to was that they would wait. After that, they were taking the smaller ships and sailing away—alone if they had to.

***

Preparing for a tough meeting the following day, no one spoke about the events of the past week. The intuitive sentiment around the community seemed almost as if everyone was collectively scared that all the others had given up, but secretly they were just equally paranoid of the same thing: complacence with a primitive existence.

No one wanted to be on Caranos any longer. The extended vacation on a comforting paradise had ended.

Peter took the lead. This time, however, the event had to be conducted outside on the main performance stage, as every citizen of Caranos attended. The community building was just too small to handle such a massive crowd.

The sailor and soon-to-be father was the most unnerved he could ever remember being. "Okay, uh, can-can everyone hear me?"

Deafening silence. The lack of reassurance only made the moment harsher on everyone.

"Alright. So, let's get started, but remember the rules if you're here. One person at a time and let's hear everyone out, okay? We can't get distracted or hostile. You will be removed for the better interest of the group. To those of you who are new, please raise your hands to speak and keep your piece short and concise to avoid taking too much time. We're here to decide what to do about. leaving this place. I have a list of questions here that each need to be addressed. So, let's begin. First, we all know what happened last week. We took a breather for several days, which is great. Our teams really seemed to need it and perhaps it did us all well. We need to try to think beyond what happened and move forward. So, first question is...Who is in and who is out?" Peter raised his right hand.

People looked around suspiciously, nervous of what others would say. No one spoke.

Peter tried again, "Yes, ladies and gentlemen. This is happening whether we like it or not." The young man was beginning to sound like a familiar voice to everyone. "Those who wish to leave are leaving. Those who wish to stay can stay and hope that we reach our destination. So, I ask again. Who is in and who is out?"

Pei couldn't believe the magnitude of community attendance compared the inverse proportion of participation—or lack thereof. Pei also didn't say anything. The truth was, as ambitious as he was to set sail, the ocean was terrifying. He knew he wasn't the only one who felt this way. The first failure was strongly deterring.

Everyone was petrified.

***

Feeling he was letting his fellow human beings down, Pei stiffened as he thought about what had happened to him his first week on Caranos—how the world suddenly made sense to him. He thought about the privilege of having a leader like Captain Royce who recognized Pei's talents and desire to propel the community forward. Pei thought about all the people who were lost and how horrible it felt to be a survivor. He looked to Yini and thought about her parents, then he looked to the island's first newborn, Hope.

Her name, he thought.

Hope was perhaps the most perfect name Pei could have imagined for the first child born on Caranos. After all, hope is all the people of Caranos had since the day they disappeared from society. Hope is the reason they waited so patiently to be rescued. It's the reason they decided to work together, to build houses for one another, and to work on Pei's little projects from the very beginning. It's why the captain recognized the benefit in Pei's ideas. Everyone had hoped their hard work and cooperation would help each other survive. They hoped they would all be rescued and finally see the real world again one day. Many people often imagined telling the world about their experiences in believing that the stories might inspire others to never give up during even the most dreaded times.

Pei had hope from day 1 and never lost it. He blocked out the saddening predicament as much as he could, only focusing on progress. All Pei could do was work tirelessly to see that his hopes came true. He hoped for rescue, which never came. But then he hoped for water, which he found. He hoped for tools, which he made. Suddenly, he had started to realize that there is always hope, no matter what. Whether or not rescue came was completely out of his hands, and everyone else's. Instead, Pei focused on what he knew he could do and what he could imagine. He loved the seeming beauty of being able to imagine anything he wanted and then creating it. He imagined accomplishing the feats that took humans thousands of years to achieve, and then doing so in only a short year. Pei never knew he would be successful, but it was hope that was always there.

Pei realized that hope mattered more in life than anything else. As long as people still had hope, he knew they could do anything. As long as people still had hope, they could escape any situation, no matter how hopeless it seemed. Mankind has taken small steps at a time to make giant leaps, not because the goals were easy, but because they were hard. Yet, there has never been a common goal that all humans shared. Humans even know that they're born to live, to suffer, to reproduce, and then to die. They don't know what comes before or after, but the realization that life is only temporary doesn't stop them. Humans continue to grow as a species into something more profound than anything ever known to exist. But many wonder what the point is. If all people must die, then what's the meaning of a single existence? Why do anything at all, other than survive?

Pei, in that moment, couldn't have answered these questions. He didn't know. What he did know was that there was still hope. Without it, what happened next could never have taken place.