A volunteer has gone missing. Where could she have gone? She never stopped by the volunteer office to say she was leaving. She didn’t tell her shift leader she wouldn’t be working anymore. She never got a goodbye lei. Witnesses say her tent was down and gone literally in minutes, and that armed members of the Aloha Patrol whisked her off property in an unmarked van with tinted windows and a bumper sticker that simply said “Pele’s Warriors.” Maybe you knew her. She worked in House Keeping. Her name was Chris. What’s going on? We were so freaked out by the whole situation, we were barely able to launch an investigation. But we pulled ourselves together enough to track down the answers.
To understand what happened to Chris, remember where we are. This isn’t the mainland. This isn’t Europe. This isn’t New York City where everybody is safe and secure in their in their apartments, their subway platforms with their police force to keep them safe from danger. No. This is Puna- Lower Puna. Things are a lot different here.
In Lower Puna, we take a different approach to life. We have to. There is a volcano erupting and a Goddess named Pele to appease. Ever ask yourself why an entire town like Kalapana could be taken out by a lava flow, when that lava could have just as easily taken a turn and came towards Kalani? It’s because we know how to appease Pele, so she spares us.
This brings us to Chris. Our founder, Richard- he’s an oracle, in case you didn’t know. Daily, he goes into a deep meditative trance state where he communicates directly with Pele. Sometimes Pele makes demands telling Richard what she expects from him if Kalani is going to survive another year. Sometimes Pele demands weird back-bending statues on the mound. Other times she demands that all volunteers eat boiled eggs for a month. But this time, Pele wanted more. She demanded a human sacrifice- Chris, specifically.
Why Chris? Is it because of her purity? Her charisma? Her charm? Only Richard knows the answer, but it really doesn’t matter. The bottom line is Pele wanted Chris as a sacrifice, and she got her. Now Kalani is safe for at least another year. It kind of sucks that House Keeping had to lose a valuable member like that, but if that’s what it takes to keep Kalani safe, that’s what it takes and we are happy to offer her up. Mahalo, Chris.
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