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After the Gold Rush	By : christinecornell Category: M through R > Night at the Museum Views: 5 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Just an idea that came to me last Thanksgiving after watching the Night at the Museum movies and Steve Coogan on a rerun of Top Gear where he mentioned Around the World in 80 Days, and I thought to combine both worlds. I own nothing!

Chapter List
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I lingered there on the side of the circle with a coconut in hand as I watched their ceremony in silence. It was all so rhythmic and hypnotic that I couldn’t afford to look away: it reminded me of all the lush, lavish beauty of Prince Hapi’s palace back in Istanbul. I could not stop thinking about the fact that I had had Monique so close to me back then. I needed to find peace of mind, and I needed to find something to do with my hands as well: I knew for a fact that that would bring me away from those thoughts of regret.
Leilani had gone somewhere with her bowl of poi, and I had been left to my own devices. With the primal chants and the way the music seemed to carry me without actually carrying me, I found my own mind wandering about once again. My own mind wandering, especially with the way in which the men moved about with such fluidity. Fluid and yet sturdy and strong, strong enough to pick me up and hold me up towards the ceiling so I could sleep soundly—
I snapped myself out of my trance and glanced down at the half of a coconut nestled in my hands. All of the sounds and the fact that I had been beached there the day before.
It hit me like a bolt of lightning. The inventor had returned with vengeance.
I bowed out of there and into the torrid sunshine once again, and all the while, I never let go of the coconut. I was going to do it with only one free hand if I had to; I reached the edge of the trees from where I had been before, where the palm fronds fluttered in the breeze. I needed something stiff as well, something as stiff and sturdy as the outer shell of the coconut; but the fronds could serve as something of a protective shield for my body as well as my head.
I knew for a fact that I needed to eat, and I needed something better than what I had there on the beach as well.
I pricked a few fronds off the tree closest to me: I needed something to bind them together once I found something to keep them up over the sand. Right as I thought that, I took a glimpse to the sand, and I spotted an anthill with about a thousand different black and red ants all scrambling about as if they were on fire.
“And there’s my bed,” I muttered to myself as I thought ahead. I glanced over to my left where I spotted Leilani with another woman: they seemed to be carrying something long, thin, and wooden. I knew what it was before they even made eye contact with me once again.
“Is that bamboo?” I asked her.
“It absolutely is,” she replied. Her eyes wandered down to the palm fronds in my free hand, and then she squinted at me as she returned her gaze to my face. Her lips curled up into a tight smile as she returned to the stacks of bamboo before her.
“Is it alright if I use some of that myself?” I then asked her.
“Of course! There is plenty of it to go about.” She looked at me with this twinkle in her eyes as if she knew something that I didn’t. She then glimpsed over at her friend and spoke something to her, and then her friend picked up a bundle of bamboo and gestured for me to follow her back towards the little party behind us. There was a small shack of thatched fronds and straw tucked back into the trees, away from the euphoric music and the chanting. In fact, when we were inside of there, I noticed the immediate quiet that followed us, despite it only having two rooms in there: the main part of the shack stood empty, but the next room could possibly serve as the kitchen.
And it was as if she followed along with my train of thought as she helped me craft out a bed for myself there in that spare room. She and I took turns taking trips out to the trees again for more fronds as well as more bamboo: I wasn’t very heavy so to speak, but I also was not willing to sleep on the hard wooden floor, especially when that wood could give out underneath me when I least expected it and when there were ants roaming about the ground as well. At one point, I had set down the coconut on the aged wooden floor to assist her, but I was in need of something once again as she and I had finished out and reinforced the bed with palm fronds and thick stalks of bamboo.
I ran my fingers through my hair, and I considered dunking my head into a makeshift tidepool over on the beach to, at the very least, clean off my scalp.
“My coat is still back on the beach,” I informed her with a rubbing of my hands together. “I know it’s hot and humid, but I need something to cover me whilst I’m sleeping.” I glanced back at the bed once again. “I also reckon I could use a pillow for my head as well.”
“That could be your pillow,” the woman suggested.
“True,” I replied, and I showed her a little smile. She then doubled back outside, even though I was more than happy to do that myself. When I found myself alone in that room, I took my spot on the edge of my new bed. The bamboo held me up over the floor, but the real test was in the fronds themselves as well as her binding.
I slid back onto the fronds, and I was about to lift my feet off the floor when she returned with my coat slung over her shoulder and my boots in either of her hands.
“How is it?” she asked me as she set my boots down on the floor.
“I was just about to test it out,” I replied.
“Lay down,” she advised me, and I lay down flat on my back. The fronds themselves held me up about a foot off the floor, and the bamboo supported my full weight: it was like a hammock but without all of the fuss that came along with it. I put my hands behind my head, which coaxed a smile out of her. “Comfortable?”
“Somewhat,” I confessed as I shifted my weight. “This is a little hard on my neck.”
“You need something soft,” she suggested, and she rolled up my coat into a heap for the back of my head. I lifted my head as she tucked the coat under my hair, and I let out a low whistle from the feeling. “Better?”
“Much better,” I replied, and Leilani entered the hut right then with a bundle of bamboo over her shoulder.
“Are you going to be comfortable up in here, Phileas?” she asked me in a near whisper.
“I do believe so,” I assured her. “Your assistant and I built this bed, after all.” I simply could not resist the smile and little wink to her. For a moment, I had forgotten that she was engaged.
I enjoyed a little more of the luau outside, along with more tastes of the poi as well as some fresh pineapple and a mango, and yet, I knew in my heart that I could not survive on all of these fruits. I needed something to fill me up more, something to keep me going because I knew that if I didn’t, I was going to die there, or perhaps it was my own appetite begging for mercy from me.
When I met up with Leilani again before the sun went down again, I asked her if they had any meat on the islands.
“Well, there is plenty of fish abound,” she began, “and there is also suckling pig, but that’s more for special occasions.” She cocked her head to the side at the sight of me. “Why, are you hungering for something else?”
“If it’s not too much to ask for,” I confessed to her with a shrug. “We enjoy our pies, our puddings, and our roast beef and Yorkshire pudding back in England.” I shuddered as a cool wind swept over us: the first time I actually felt something of a chill since I had beached there.
“Let me see what I can do,” she consoled me, “in the meantime, let me also grab you a blanket. I feel the rain in the air right now.”
“Plus, I’ve been sweating like a madman since I arrived here as well,” I told her with another shiver. With a warm smile, Leilani led me back to my shack, and I took my seat on the edge of the makeshift bed with my hands on either side of me. I waited there not even a few moments before she returned to me with a thin but soft blanket, which she put over my legs.
“Let me ask around,” she suggested to me. “I want you to have your strength.” She gazed at me and lingered close to my face as if she was about to kiss me, but she never did. Instead, she left me to my own devices once more, to which I took it upon myself to lay down on my new bed once again.
A miscalculation, perhaps: even the most brilliant of minds were prone to those. Nevertheless, I relished in the blanket which she had given me, and I bowed my head and fell asleep.
The next thing I knew, I woke up with a cold, damp feeling on my shoulder and an acrid odor wafting before my face. It was rather rank, as when I opened my eyes, I fully expected it to be there right in front of my face. Night had fallen over the islands, and Leilani still hadn’t returned yet, and at that point, I was absolutely famished.
I rolled over onto my back, and I gazed up at the dark ceiling over me. There was in fact a window off to the side of me, and something out there caught my eye.
“What is that smell…?” I muttered under my breath. I rolled over onto my right side and peered out the window. It made me think of burning ashes, except I hadn’t the foggiest as to how ashes could be burned when they already originated from burning itself. I lifted myself up onto my elbow and gazed out there.
The neighboring island could not have been more than fifty miles away from my bunk, but the smoke smelled so close.
“Oh, my sweet lord,” I breathed out. A plantation of some sort was on fire.
Even in the darkness, I could see who was out there. I knew that flag anywhere, even from thousands of miles away on the other side of the world.
My people. The empire. The empire was doing this, such that it was making me sick to think about. I held a hand to my head, and suddenly, the headache from when I was in San Francisco had returned with a vengeance.
Leilani’s assistant skidded into the shack right then with a look of fear upon her face.
“There you are,” she declared in a hushed voice. “Get down, get down…” I laid back down onto my back, so the shadows engulfed my head and shoulders.
It made sense. They were looking for me.
She tucked herself against the wall, right next to the window frame itself; through the shadows, I could see the look of fear in her eyes.
“I’m not here,” I told her, and she nodded at me. She had this look in her eyes as if she trusted me, and I should perhaps trust her as well. I hunkered down under the blanket with it covering my head. Before I had obscured my own view, the last thing I saw was the outline of a bottle of rum tucked on the shelf right underneath the windowsill.
The thought of drinking at that very moment not only made me particularly thirsty, especially since all I had to drink since my arrival was coconut water, but at the same time, it made my throat close up, because I needn’t drink, at least not in a time such as this. If I crawled in the bottom of a bottle once again, there was no finding my way off of Oahu, even though I really had no desire to leave whatsoever: they were lovely people and they seemed to welcome me with open arms.
But I had a new problem on my hands, and I had a nagging, persistent feeling that Kelvin had to be behind it as well.
Miles away, I could hear their voices across the water. I could hear them coming. There was a strange distant clanking of metal blades as well: my own imagination was telling me that they wanted my blood.
Fix wanted my blood in particular. Somehow, I had to fight back. I had to stop running and channel my inner warrior against them.
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After the Gold Rush