Tickle Tickle

I lay my head back against the lava rock and stared up at the sky. The humidity in the air dulled the blue a bit, but it still was the color you would expect from a tropical sky, blue enough to swim in. A few small clouds floated by and I followed their movement as they brushed up against the tops of rugged mountains flanked by a heavy cloak of their own clouds, much denser and almost a silver gray. The Mountains bore the dense tropical foliage you would expect in a remote corner of paradise.

Between myself and the mountains lay acres of uninhabited rough land covered with lava slides. One would think nothing grew on this lunar inspired landscape, but upon closer examination it is revealed that something is growing. Apparently the lava is fertile soil for a plant with roots like talons that can dig into the hard lava ground and become footing for a single stalk which proudly carries one perfect orchid bloom. The entire landscape is dotted with these tough little orchids, like a bag of cotton balls spilled out over a black counter top.

Closer to my resting place, palm trees grew in profusion. The soil here was not the solid lava rock, but, because the location was just a coconuts throw from the magnificently powerful waves of hundreds of miles of open ocean, the ground was covered with a fine black sand, pulverized lava rock, which apparently is the perfect growing medium for coconut palms. The trees were grouped along the coast in twos and threes, like sentries on watch for invaders off the water. As I lay there I tried to imagine how long it took for the waves to turn orchard supporting lava rocks into palm growing sand.

As I contemplated the immeasurable time it would take to turn rocks to sand I became aware of a tickle at my toes. It came and went like the rhythm of the waves I could hear behind me, crashing against the shelf of lava between my resting spot and the ocean. It was a small tickle, first around big toe, then at my ankle. Like a tiny feather brushing by me on the wind.

I lifted my hand from the cool water of my resting place and wiped the sweat from my face. I was up to my neck in a tidal pool, full of the ocean left by the last high tide. My spot was the size of a large claw footed bathtub and sand lined the bottom to create a comfortable cushion between my behind and the lava rocks. The water was warmer than that which pounded against the rock ledge, warmed by the morning sun to the temperature of the air around me. Warm as it was, it still cooled me, washing away the sweat from my hike to the remote beach.

The tickle came again, around my small toe now and along the outer edge of my foot. I opened one eye and cast about in the water, wondering where the feather had come from. To my surprise I caught a glimpse of movement. Darting around my foot, a little yellow streak in the shadows. A wiggle of my toes and the yellow streak darted back and forth. Toes still, like a lily pad on a pond brought the yellow streak back to my foot, tickle tickle.

I looked closer, this time both eyes searching and I found the yellow streak surrounded by black, a tiny arrow streaking around in my tropical tub. I was not the only traveler seeking respite from the high sun in the cool of this tidal pool. A tiny fish, no more than two inches long shared my bath. My movement had brought the tiny fish to a standstill, fins in slow rippling motion, holding my little companion in the shadow of a tiny overhang on the edge of our lava rock tub.

I said a little prayer for the tiny fish, that it be lifted from this tide pool with the first high tide of the night. That it sail on the waves back to the ocean, into the cool deep of its home. I lay my head back on the lava rock and closed my eyes relaxing back into the waves, the salt water, the humid air, the lava. I could hear the palm fronds in the breeze. Stillness came. Tickle tickle.