A Story About Hawaii
Adam Breckenridge

Jim walked along the beach, reveling in the atmosphere, wishing his skin were transparent so he could absorb the scenery. In his mind he replayed the words that had brought him here. “Yes, William McKinley is the answer and that means you have won our Hawaii getaway package. Congratulations!” He closed his eyes, savoring a victory again. He didn’t see the conch shell half-buried in the sand, tripped over it and crashed into a palm tree, which collapsed under his weight. He looked curiously at the mass beneath him, then picked up a scrap of it. It was papier-mâché. He got up and went over to another palm tree. He pushed it. This one collapsed too; it was also made of papier-mâché. Worried at what this could mean, he ran along the beach, crashing into all the palm trees, all of which fell apart at his touch. They were all made of papier-mâché. He had been tricked.

In his rage, he looked around for something he could lash out against. Down the way there was a fruit stand with a smiling local behind it waving at him—mockingly, Jim thought. He charged it head on and felt it give way easily when he bowled into it. It had been poorly constructed out of cardboard and Styrofoam. The fruit was plastic. The man was an android. Surely, he thought, those hula dancers must be too. He ripped an arm off the fruit vendor, ran up to one of the dancers and started bashing her over the head with it. Sparks shot from her eyes and she began to spasm and spin around in circles. The other dancers continued to smile and sashay alluringly. He started in on the next one when a cool ocean breeze kicked in, blown by fans hidden behind the blue silk screen of the sky. It was calm and refreshing. Jim put down the arm. “Still, it’s such a beautiful place,” he said to the hula dancers.

Adam Breckenridge is a student in the MFA creative writing program at Antioch University in Los Angeles. When not writing or studying, he works on classified documents for a military contractor and has the power to get anyone who questions him about his job investigated by the Department of Defense. His work has previously been published in Bust Down the Door & Eat All the Chickens and Grub. Breckenridge is also a freelance film writer for the Oaklahoma City Examiner; check him out here.