What Happened In Paradise?

Second Visit: Welcome Back to the Island...

Fifteen minutes out from the airport, the taxi pulls off the road and cuts into a field of darkness. On the right and left, stalks of what appears to be sugar cane tower high above the taxi. The stalks seem to kiss the dark, blue-green canvas. Moonbeams peer around thick dark clouds, but enough of the moon isn’t visible to illuminate the canefield.

“I don’t have much money.” Maxwell shuffles in the backseat. He wonders if poor judgment and desperation are leading him to his end; he’s sure of it.

“What do you mean?” The taxi driver turns on the roof light. “You do not have money to pay?”

Maxwell clears his throat. “Yes. I do. I just mean -” A white plantation house comes into view before Maxwell is able to utterly embarrass himself and this man. There is no way to respectfully explain that he thought he was being delivered to robbery and death. “Why The Inn?” he asks to change the subject.

“They say once you go in, you never come out.” The driver finds Maxwell’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He smiles; his teeth, large and white, glint. The dark clouds have rolled by, freeing the full moon. If Maxwell had to put an image to the term “devilish grin,” it would be the one he saw in the mirror. He swallows hard.

“This is Water Island,” the driver says. “We call things by the names we want.”

Maxwell tries to smile; his face feels like a grimace.

“It does not matter if it does not make sense to you. It makes sense to us.” The driver turns off the roof light. “We are here.”