What We've Become

Kahala, otherwise known as “the Beverly Hills” of the Pacific, is an area along the south shore of Oahu which features some of the costliest property on the island. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, much of that property was purchased by foreign investors. When the economy flagged in the early 2000's, some of the mansions along Kahala Avenue were virtually abandoned. As I walked through the neighborhood at the time I thought, “what a great setting for a series of dystopian stories.” From a recent re-reading of J.G. Ballard and Stephen Jay Gould, this story evolved … pun intended!

“What We’ve Become” by James C. Clar © copyright 2026

The Kahala Resort sat stranded on the shore, a carcass of chrome, steel and glass. The rising sea had swallowed the first-floor decades ago. The smell of rust and iodine clung to everything. A handful of survivors remained on the coast. Others had either left Oahu or had fled to the inland valleys.

Dr. Frain arranged the chessboard on his lanai. He placed each piece on the middle of its square. Precision mattered more than anything to him of late.

Adamski appeared on schedule, a gaunt figure in a sun-bleached Aloha shirt. It was no longer possible to discern the garment’s original color or design. The man’s stride was measured, as though he were carefully calculating the distance between steps.

“You’ll take white again,” Adamski declared as he lowered himself into his chair.

“I find the order of choosing the opening reassuring,” Frain answered. He moved his pawn to c4.

“Order is an illusion,” Adamski, a former Mathematics professor, replied. He placed the corresponding piece on c5, obliging his opponent with the English Symmetrical Opening. “We discover patterns after the fact. It’s a habit of the human mind to invent them even if they’re not there.”

“As you always say.” Frain glanced at his companion. “Your wife is well?”

Adamski nodded.  

They played on in silence save for the click of the pieces. Eventually, Adamski asked, “What are you writing this week?”

“A treatise,” Frain answered enthusiastically. “On the ocean … the radiation … the consequent mutations. The world declares it a catastrophe. It’s not. It’s a preparation for what we are becoming.”

“Which is precisely … what?”

“Who can say? A new form or, I should say, new forms. Undoubtedly forms better suited to survive what is to come.”

“You make it seem almost providential.”

“Providence … or Nature,” Frain said with reverence. “I don’t see the difference.” The doctor made his move and looked up. “Checkmate.”

Their evenings passed in tranquil regularity. Twice a week they met, trading fragments of philosophy, natural history and ecological speculation across the chessboard. By day Adamski glimpsed Frain on his lanai, eyes turned toward the empty horizon where the ocean shimmered like quicksilver.

One night Frain remarked, “You never invite your wife to watch.”

“She prefers to be alone,” Adamski replied as he rose to leave. “I should go. She’s waiting.”

On Tuesday Frain laid out the board as usual, but Adamski didn’t show. Wednesday, the doctor’s anticipation turned to restlessness. By Thursday it became concern. He walked to Adamski’s suite. He knocked on the door. No answer. He tried again. The door opened at a touch.

The rooms were tidy, what meager furniture they owned was aligned with mathematical precision. On the dining table he spotted a chessboard. He recognized a particularly sharp position from their last game.

“Professor?” Frain’s voice was amplified by the stillness. He moved through the corridor. The last door stood ajar, revealing two chairs facing each other.

Adamski was slumped in one, chin sunk, mouth slack. But for the stillness of his chest, one might have thought him dozing.

In the chair opposite, sat his wife.

Frain froze, comprehension slowly dawning. The woman’s body had withered into something delicate, like the petals of an exotic flower pressed between the pages of time. She had been waiting indeed. And in that time, Darwinian forces had transformed her into something entirely new.

Frain walked back to his rooms deep in thought. Inside, he took out his treatise and began to write. Once done for the night, he fetched the chessboard. “I’ll play your side for you as well, professor,” he said aloud. “Together, we’ll wait to see what you’ve become.”

That night the doctor dreamed of vast oceans respiring, exhaling new species with each incoming tide. The notes he penned upon waking read like a hymn to patterns only he could fathom. The chessboard and the sea were conspiring to teach him the rules of a new game, one with limitless possibility and inexhaustible variation.

The End