A Tale of Two Kitties:
During a
Ballistic Missile Threat
Perspective is everything, do not let anyone tell you different. Sometimes the forest is entirely different from the other side of the trees. Just listen to the tale of Sam and Son, two roommates in Hawaii who had very different takes on a true -life event that happened on January 13th 2018. It was a beautiful Saturday morning in Hawaii. Sam, mused later that it was hard to figure later if they threat of life and death had added to the beauty or if it was really just one of those picture perfect mornings. Although Sam had worked all week, he had told a group of friends, he would go hiking with them on Saturday morning.
Sam stubbled out of bed. Sam swore as he packed his bag, he was hungover from too many IPA’s the night before. He filled up a hydro flask, packed his bag with trail mix and then lay back down on his bed for a few minutes. He got back up, took some ibuprofen, and looked for his cat leash. Yes, he had a cat leash. One of the two cats that was a resident of the apartment was a big black cat named Natas who thought he was a dog. And yes, you could walk Natas down the street with a leash like you could walk a dog. It was quiet an odd sight to see, Sam and his big black cat strolling down the street. As Sam picked up the leash, Natas jumped up onto the table, almost knocking a chair over on the process. Natas knew he was going to get to go for a walk. Sam, attached the leash to Natas collar, grabbed his backpack and was out the door.
Meanwhile Son was fast asleep, having worked a graveyard shift at the corner store. The other cat was a smaller, quiet normal cat named Angle who like Son was fast asleep oblivious to the chaos that was about to ensue. Angle was dreaming of endless saucers of milk and birds that didn’t know how to fly.
“Fuck,” Sam yelled out as he dropped his keys beneath the car. He thought about going back into the house and going back to bed. He sometimes wishes he did that.
The car smelled slightly of stale smoke from after the bar.
Natas plopped down on the passage seat and made himself comfortable. The time was only a little after 8AM and Sam was still cursing himself, it should be illegal to be up this early on a Saturday morning or so his mom would have insisted. He had to drive all the way from Kapolei to Pearl Harbor which without traffic wouldn’t take very long. Maybe 20 minutes. He got on H1 going east and before he knew it, he was getting off the exit. At the light, he picked up his phone and texted his friend Liz, “Be there in a sec,” even though it would take a good ten minutes to make it to the top ridge above Pearl Harbor where they would be hiking. The road reminded him of the beginning of a rollercoaster in that it went straight up, maybe not quite as steep, but you wouldn’t want to skateboard down this hill. No way, you’d probably die.
Sam turned left and was now headed downhill for a brief moment; he had heard there were ancient Hawaiian petroglyphs around here. The last remains of ancient Hawaii. The road then continued uphill, though not nearly as steep. Sam was listening to the radio, turned all the way up, when the sound cut out.
He changed the station, but there was no music playing on any stations.
Weird, he thought.
Then he heard that sound that still gives him anxiety every time he hears it to this day.
It reminded him of the internet in the early days or a modem dialing up. Those awful screeches you hear at the beginning of the Emergency Alert System are digitized codes that communicate the type of threat, area (counties) threatened, and how long the threat is in place. But there was no precedent for what was about to occur.
The screeching of the “Beeeeep…. Beeeeep…. Beeeeep…. Boooooooooooooooooooooooon,” started playing over the radio at 8:52AM, Hawaii Standard Time.
The programmed voice started talking over the digital sounds, “This is not a test; a ballistic missile is headed toward Hawaii and could be on the ground in minutes. I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
Huh?
Sam adjusted the volume turning the chirping, screeching sounds up. He fumbled with the knob confused about what was happening. This isn’t happening, he thought. Natas, that fat cat didn’t seem alarmed, he was curled up on the front seat comfortably.
Sam looked up into the bluest sky he thought he had ever seen. He looked around. Would he see the missile coming? Would he see it drop out of the sky like some rocket of doom?
Within minutes there were sirens going off from the town below. Was this for real? It still seemed like a dream. Sam was floating past empty streets, where were all the people? I mean it was 8:54AM on a Saturday morning, so probably asleep, but the streets did seem unusual empty.
