Without hesitation, Spahr sets up her short story with the perfect introduction paragraph describing a flower, which, for the purpose of analogy I am only choosing one of the names introduced, is called huehue haole by the native people of the island. Huehue is “the name of a climber native to the islands” and haole is used to describe those that come from a different land. This name in itself is a contradiction, the first part of the name is native to the island while the other is foreign. But, as it goes on to say, in botany, it’s a name that describes a “particularly noxious and invasive species”. Could this perhaps be in reference to colonization or just foreigners in general or could it mean system and categorization? People conquer a land, establish their own systems of categorization and try to eradicate the existing customs and assimilate their own ways into the culture until the only remnants of the past are in the facial features of the natives which are also slowly being diluted as they mate with their oppressors. Though that isn’t really the entire point of this piece.
The threesome, who for all purposes are the main characters of this story, are lovers and yet they do not know exactly how to act as a threesome since lovers are only supposed to come in pairs. Part of the problem is that they can’t find words to describe their relationship, however, they hear that on this island (which actually is Hawaii…right?) there was a word used in the native tongue to describe them. Of course, they don’t speak this language nor are they native to the land. Although these things are true, the island made them realize what they were, they gave them a name and they realized that this name is a name that belonged to them and to the other them, the they of the past. And I think that I will continue this discussion at a later time because I’d like to read it more in-depth before jumping to any more conclusions.
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