Waterworld: 10 Years Later

The man behind Enola removed his hands from over her face, and after a moment of allowing her eyes to adjust, a smile spread across her still youthful face. "What is it?"

"It's a birthday pie," Helen answered.

"What's a birthday pie?"

"It's a pie," Helen answered with a chuckle, "to celebrate the day of your birth."

Enola looked confused. "Is this the day of my birth?"

"It is now," the Enforcer said from atop a nearby downed palm tree. "You didn't have one. You need one. No one has this one. So ... it's yours."

The gathered crowd -- most of the current 24 residents of Everest Island -- laughed at the silliness of simply choosing a birth date. Enola pointed to the 19 small, ornate seashells decorating the treat. "And these?"

"One for every year you have been alive," Gregor added. He urged the others into song and, once finished, Helen removed the shells and cut the pie -- and three more just like it -- so that everyone could partake of Enola's treat.

Hope pushed her way through the gathered people to shove something out at the birthday girl. The soon-to-be ten year old daughter of Helen and the Mariner announced proudly, "I made it."

The gift was tubular in shape, about a foot long, and 'wrapped' within a palm frond cover. Enola removed the frond wrapper and stared at the emergency oxygen tank that had been used by one of the thousands of climber's to ascend Everest back when it was still buried beneath snow.

"What is it?" Enola asked.

Hope snatched it, put her lips close to the open top, and blew. A soft whistle sounded within the metal chamber. She held it up high before her, explaining, "Hang it in a tree, and when the wind blows..."

She put it to her mouth again and repeated the melodic sound.

"That's stupid," a young male voice sounded behind Enola. The boy, Hope's twin, shoved out an unwrapped gift that was unquestionably a mountain climbing hammer. "What does she want a noise maker for? You want a shell hammer. It's useful."

The two twins began arguing back and forth about the merits of their gifts. Enola had always been amazed with the differences between the two. The boy -- who bore the name his mother had given their father, Ulysses -- was adventurous and risk taking, while his sister was more cautious and contemplative.

They did, of course, have similarities. Ironically, these commonalities -- webbed fingers and feet, functioning gills, and transparent eye covers below their more 'human' eye lids -- set them apart from the rest of those living on Everest Island.

And just as the noise maker and shell hammer were gifts for Enola, these 'adaptations' were gifts to not just the twins but to the community as a whole. The children were able to do things for their 'family' that made them treasured by the others.

Occasionally a new Seafarer -- or group of them -- would arrive at Everest Island and find the children 'freakish'. But it was made abundantly clear to these newcomers that the children were an important and 'normal' part of this community. If the newcomers couldn't accept the children as they were, they could simply return to the sea.

Most came to accept Hope and Ulysses not as freaks but as the gifts they were. Others hadn't been able to do so and returned to the sea. Still others couldn't accept it and wouldn't leave. These people simply disappeared in the night and were never spoken of again.