The Keeper of Shadows

Chapter 2 - Blurry

One suitcase and one small carry on. That is just about everything that goes with me. I am about 8th in line at the airport for check in and the sky is a beautiful blue with a few lost clouds drifting lazily behind the skyscrapers that takes up the most airspace. Following the path of a particulary white cloud I blink and suddenly the skyscrapers are gone and the road is a dirt one with small wooden shops lining the street. Blinking again to make sure I wasn't entirely going mad, I open my eyes to the cuty again, skyscrapers, glass windows, traffic and the paved road. Before I could fullt understand what just happened, my attention is called back to the man standing behind thr check in desk. Looking around me, I'm met with the irritated faces of the people behind me. No one seemed to have noticed the sudden shift in time other than me. I quickly apologize to the couple just behind me and make quick work of checking in. Taking another look around, everyone seems to be going about normally.
Strange.
It's close 8 pm when the plane descends onto the runway of the first major island. From there there's a short ride to a dock and by the time 10pm arrives I'm unlocking thr door of the secluded beach  bungalow surrounded by lush greenery on three sides and a small Rocky path to the beach below.
It's been a while since I've been back here, right around World War two to be exact. It's secluded enough that the people who wander nearby don't ask any questions or pay any attention to me when the forests and beached of Hawaii is the reason they come here in the first place.
After opening all the windows to let the salty air sweep through, I make quick work of packing away my clothes and books. Letting my hand drift over the bamboo bookcase, I recall a day when you couldn't go anywhere in town without getting almost minutely updates on the War, not a seamstress, not a bookstore, not even a carpenter. I decided on a Tuesday morning to wander into town, not knowing at the time the War was a few days away from being over, to stock up on a few essentials and see what new books have been delivered. The bookstore belonging to an old native Hawaiian lady who even in the year 1945 with a dark cloud hanging over the world, always had a so many colors surrounding her, if not flowers in her hair or around her neck, a skirt or shirt with some flower pattern.
She was busy packing out new stock on a newly built bookcase when I entered the shop, the bell still ringing as closed the door behind me. "Aloha miss" she said as she looked up from her work and I smiled as I moved over to where she was, greeting her. "Got the bookcase from grandson down the road, he's been experimenting and built this all by himself." she says proudly, shelving thr last books before facing me and stretching out her back. "It's a beautiful bookcase, he definitely has a good eye and steady hand." I say as I look it over. Smiling proudly, she walks back to the counter and turns the radio down slightly while I look through the books, there's a few I decide on before heading over and paying.
I find the carpenter shop belonging to her son and grandson and I spot a few more of the same style bookcases inside, newly built. A short conversation later, her grandson whose name is Makani offers to deliver one I didn't need much convincing to buy.
It was the centerpiece of my little opens pace living room and I'd barely finished arranging my books on there a few days later as the sirens and joys, signaling the end of a tragic War was heard even in my secluded little corner.
It's now, decades later, that I remember the significance of the bookcase more than I remember the details of the war.