San Juniper
Tucker, GA
2020, Senior, Creative Writing
The railing was made of old stone, greyed and rough against the soft white of my palms. We watched the cruise slog through the waters. The air was lit alive by its berating horn, a piercing cry, met with annoyed squawks from overhead seagulls. My brother grimaced. “They come to visit San Juniper, but they never want to help San Juniper.”
The younger tourists would flock to the most crowded destinations of the island, filling the sandy beaches with loud bonfires and cheap liquor. To them, we were hardly distinguishable from Florida. We were expendable. Once they exhausted their fun, they would board the ship again with sunburnt shoulders and lobster faces, wrists jingling from cheap seashell bracelets. Cyan and I were more than accustomed to it. We’d grown up with tall, tanned tourists strolling down our favorite pastel streets. We played in the water with Minnesota girls and Seattle boys. It was hardly new to us. The difference was, this was our home.
“Indigo,” he says. I turn to him, and Cyan sighs. It’s one of those heavy sighs, the kind that takes excess strength to draw. “Mama’s talking to Papa about leaving.” I shake my head, despite the fact I’d suspected this. I’d overheard this conversation drift from hazy kitchen lights, over pineapple-rice dinners, and on the most serene shores of San Juniper. Mama would talk about the tropical storms—two last summer, and a foreseeable hurricane this summer. We were lucky enough to have avoided the destruction, but one day we wouldn’t. “How could we leave our home?” Papa would ask, gesturing to the photo-framed walls and the doorway where Cyan and I’d marked our heights.
“Where would we go?”
“Florida, lil’ sis,” he said.
We were silent, watching the cruise pull to the dock. Once the doors opened, it sounded like a thousand thundering elephants.
***
Typically, during tourist season, Cyan and I would visit Faery’s Cove. By no means was it secret, but it was far less crowded. It was a haven for the locals. Ever since my brother and I were kids, we would competitively build sandcastles to see whose castle would crumble the quickest. Cyan was clever with his architecture; he built moats to diverge the water flow. Eventually, I perfected his technique, surpassing him. My sandcastles—once knocked down with one wave—withstood for almost the entirety of our visit.
I would swim, fingers cupped like saucers, scooping back the water. In those times, I could hear the ocean speak to me. She was an old woman—weathered by the years that’d passed—but full of old secrets. Sometimes I could hear her speak. She was always a little melancholy. Somedays she was angry. The tropical storms were a physical manifestation of her fury. She could feel the poison building up inside of her: dead reefs, landfills, rapid acidification, polar warming, and human apathy. Human apathy was the most dangerous.
***
I was rinsing the forks off in the kitchen, scrubbing the prongs with a Brillo pad. Over the running water, I could hardly hear the argument igniting.
“We can’t stay here,” Mama argued. “San Juniper’s sinking. The Matile, Kensyo, Pandoka families are gone. The Trepstons are leaving. Half of our high school class is gone. There’s no life in San Juniper. It’s full of broken opportunities. We can’t build our lives here anymore. I don’t want to live in constant fear of tropical storms blowing our house down, or wake up and find that you and the kids are crushed underneath a building. People don’t thrive in fragility.”
Papa’s shoulders would collapse, and Cyan would gently hand him a glass of water. He would wrap his fingers around the cup, sighing. “This is our home, Andelina. My great-great-great-great grandfather rests here. My mother died here. We can’t leave.”
“You expect us and the kids to die here with it? The government’s not doing anything about these conditions. It’s just not safe here anymore. I’m taking Cyan and Indigo with me whether you’re coming or not,” Mama said fervently.
I frowned, vigorously drying the plates with a rag. Despite San Juniper’s beauty, I knew that it was not an easy island life. There was a fragility to it. When it stormed, the beachside streets would be flooded. Powerlines would wobble. When they toppled, there would be an electrical apprehension. Hurricanes were violent. Last summer, I’d been plucking rosy peaches from the Trepson’s trees, teeth sinking into the white nectar when the warning blared from my phone. Immediately, we were barricaded inside.
Yet, it was all I’d ever known. When I was younger, I would race down the seaside streets on my bicycle. Opal Trepson and I would pool our spare change together, wasting all our allowance on saltwater taffy. We would sit on rooftops, watching the sunset melt the sky orange. On Fridays, our friends would throw bonfires parties on Faery’s Cove, melting our youth to trashy radio music and San Juniper gossip.
Though, I’d be naive to say I didn’t notice the dwindling numbers. Families were leaving. They would pack their bags with teary eyes, swallow me in hugs, before departing on ships and planes. Turning my head to Cyan, I could see he had the same thought. “Mama,” I said, “I don’t think I can just leave San Juniper.”
Her dark eyes flashed. “We can’t live here like this anymore.”
***
We packed our things in suitcases and trunks, taking what we could. It was with reluctance that Papa gave in—we would move to Florida. I opened my bedroom blinds, watching the trees sway in a carefree breeze. It was a view I’d stare out at ever since I was a baby, babbling to nursery rhymes in Cyan’s old crib. We’d visit, Mama had reassured, more for Papa than any of us. Ever since he agreed, he’d been visiting the cemetery regularly. In his hand were lilacs, grandma’s favorite flowers. Our ancestors were buried here, he had said, setting down the bouquet on her grave. I don’t know for how long, Indigo. The graveyards, like most places in San Juniper, would overflood; the rising sea level and rainfall was detrimental. Manifestations of global warming, I thought grimly.
When my things were packed, I took Cyan’s car keys. San Juniper was one of those towns with whimsical street signs: Whitewater Drive, Lemon Pond Road, Belladonna Avenue, etc. I could recite them like a poem. They were embedded in my mind, and the thought of forgetting the little shops along Whitewater Drive nearly broke me. I drove past my favorite coffee shop, turning left to Faery Cove. It was beautiful as always.
Years ago, Papa had overlooked the stormy waters of the island. He’d seen the ugly of San Juniper, but the prettiest was when those rare shades of blue tinged the ocean. Cyan. Indigo.
That day, the blue water shimmered. It was not a rare shade quite like indigo or cyan, but it hardly mattered. Stripping the top layers of my clothes, I swam out into the ocean. I told her how much it pained me to leave San Juniper. It was a wordless confession. Yet, she understood. She was wistful today, running her fingers through my hair in an effort to soothe me. I swam to the shallow bottom of the cove, low enough to graze the sand with my fingers. It was there, I made her a promise.
I will fight for you.
Reflection
Reflection
Every time I’ve visited the ocean, I’ve always fallen in love with it. Whenever I visited Gulf Shores, I’d immediately feel drawn to the charismatic crash and pull of the tides. At night, my family would shine flashlights in the sand in search of sand-crabs. I wanted to create a rose-colored admiration for the ocean in my story. I owe an abundance of wonderful times to the sea, much like how my main character owes her childhood to it. Simultaneously, I wanted it to maintain a steady sense of reality; ocean acidification, pollution, and tropical storms are very real impacts of climate change. Prior to this project, I’d always been aware of these issues, but not the most informed. A central part of “San Juniper” is leaving San Juniper. In places like Nepal, people are forced to emigrate due to climate issues. By doing so, they’re parting with their home. It’s an abandonment of familiarity. In a sense, we need to abandon “familiarity” with the utmost urgency. We must discard our careless attitudes towards plastic pollution, killing marine life, simply because our habits are familiar. Instead, we should familiarize ourselves (myself included) on these issues by educating ourselves through meticulous research.