The Shark

Honolulu, Hawaii 1984.
I arrived in Hawaii when I was twenty two years old. I had never been there before, and as anyone who has been there can tell you, it is very much like a different country, if not a different world. Not only were the plants and weather foreign to me, the ways of the people were too, and there is no example of this so telling as when they were faced with a shark.
The canal are a beautiful feat of engenering that drains Oahu of its rainwater into the ocean and makes the cities of Honolulu and Waikiki possible. The one I am concerned with here is the Nuuanu canal, where it passes under
street. It was early in the morning, and not many people about, except the elderly who were up each morning at sunrise, gathered at various spots for tai chi. I was crossing the bridge that spans the canal, and curious as ever, looked over the edge into the water.
This canal is made of concrete, and the walls very steep, and while it was a good twenty feet above I could easily make out the shape of a small hammer head shark swimming up the canal. It was smaller than any shark I had seen on tv, and I surely would have mistaken it for a fish, except for that unmistable hammer shaped head. It moved just as a shark does, gracefully swaying from side to side. I was amazed. I didn’t know anything about oceans and tides, but I did know that I did not except to see a shark in downtown Honolulu, especially a baby. Still not sure I could believe my eyes, I asked a passing local man if he would look and tell me if it was really a hammer head shark.
Shaiking his head he mutter that it was impossible that is it a chark, but even still he walked over and looked.
He took one short look – he bent over, looked, and then immediatly straightened up and ran away, telling me as he passed, that yes, it was a shark.
I stayed and watched it for awhile; it did not move very fast, and then began on my way again, but I did not get too far before I heard a few sirens in the distance. Hearing sirens in Honolulu is not rare; it is not that they have any more crime than anyone else, but the State of Hawaii spends a lot of resources protected tourists, so when 911 is called police, ambulance and fire truck are dispatched, no matter the reason. I was no longer surprised by the special treatment of tourists, but I was surprised this day when these emergency vehicles stopped on the bridge. I was instructed to back up and the bridge, all four lanes of traffic, was closed. Men in uniforms watched over each side into the canal, and one even shot into the water.
It turns out that most people who live and work around the ocean hate sharks. I know that “hate’ might seem like a strong word, but I believe that it is apt; the majority of people I met on the islands agree that sharks should be destroyed on sight. Some believe that sharks are manifestions of evil, as though they are demons of the water, set out to harm man. I was once told that sharks, like scorpions and centipedes, are manifestions of curses, and that we should take care when we wish another person harm, even in secret.
they are considered to be dangerous to fish and man, and no good for anything. Many believe that even the meat is cursed and won’t eat it.
Finally, although it could not have been more than fifteen minutes, a man with a rifle arrived at the scene – a sharpshooter, and he killed the small hammerhead shark with one shot. The police man who had shot earlier had done so only to stop the shark from traveling further up the canal.