On Beverly and Bob's second day in the house on Oahu, they saw the Rainbow. It was the most beautiful Rainbow they’d ever seen. Both said it was the first one they had seen so close or so complete. Complete in that they could see both ends of it, and both ends fell within a mile from them.

It was a sunny, Sunday afternoon. They casually unpacked the last of the moving boxes. They were exhausted from being at the beach all day Saturday, and preparing for the busy workweek ahead.
The modest, single story home they had leased was in a quiet little neighborhood in northern Honolulu called, Manoa. Their street was lined with attractive, well-kept homes and was nestled between two mountain ranges in a valley.
The mountain peaks on the east side, were high enough to often be covered by rain clouds. On most afternoons, such as this one, a fine mist would drift down from the clouds to the valley floor. At the base of the mountains, very near their house, was where this mist would form the Rainbow.
Beverly saw it first and called Bob to the front porch to have a look. It was such a beautiful sight; Bob had to run for the camera to capture it for the folks back home. Over the next couple of hours, they would individually and together come back to the front porch to see if it was still there, and it would be. It hung there in the air, so bright and colorful it commanded their attention.
Hawaii really had turned out to be just as beautiful a place, as Beverly and Bob had always heard it was and more. They were both very excited with the opportunity they had been given through Beverly’s work to move there. This Rainbow topped off another beautiful day on the island. With the stress that the move had caused them both, it was nice to find a simple diversion to rekindle some childlike fascination.
The Rainbow was beautiful. With the lush green covered mountains behind it, the view could have been a post card. And it was all right outside their front door.
Bob came under the spell of the Rainbow first, almost immediately. At first, he tried to go on with his household chores, but soon found himself back in the front yard, watching the Rainbow.
And the Rainbow just hung there, slowly growing bigger and higher in the air in relation to the Sun’s slow western decent, having a mesmerizing effect on Bob. He had taken two disks full of photos with their digital camera. It lasted for almost two hours, but finally faded away, not to be seen for the rest of the day. But Bob couldn't’t put the thought and mental picture of it out of his mind. He saw it everywhere he turned. At first it was a very pleasant thing to think of, but then it became annoying.
Beverly thought it was a guy thing to get so obsessed over something like this. Refusing to admit to herself how she too, was becoming very enamored with the Rainbow.
The Rainbow became a re-occurring event most every afternoon. The clouds would veil the tops of the mountains and as the afternoon sun warmed the air to just the right temperature, the moisture would waft down in the gentle breeze like a very light snow. It soon became an addiction for both of them to come home from their jobs early and watch it.
And on days when it did not manifest itself, they went through withdrawls. Definite depression would overcome them on these days. They would just sit on the steps of their front porch, curse the high winds that kept the clouds from draping the peaks and gaze with long faces at the spot in the sky where they longed for it to be.
They were still able to basically function, but their whole drive had been taken over by the Rainbow. They were aware to some degree of how strangely they were behaving, but didn't’t quite know what to do about it.
They would make excuses at work for leaving early. They would never speak of the Rainbow to their friends or co-workers. “They just wouldn’t understand.” They would say to themselves.
Though it was not a concerted effort, they would often meet each other pulling into the driveway around 2 o’clock. They had spoken on occasion, usually at night, before they went to sleep, of this disturbing thing they were going through. They would resolve to stop their madness and get on with their lives. They would mention how their works were suffering because of it. But all would be forgotten the next afternoon, when they would rush home to pay homage to their newfound idol.
Bob remarked once, when they were discussing their malady, how it reminded him of the experiences he’d had with Cocaine. “You know you need to stop, but when it’s there, you simply have to do it.”
In the months ahead, they would completely rearrange their lives to accommodate these visits from this beautiful, multi-colored demon in the sky that had such a death-grip on them.
Beverly started working from home on the computer as much as she could and went into the office on the weekends to stay caught up on her work. Bob was finally fired from
his construction job. He tried to keep cash coming in on his end by doing everything he could from car washing and detailing in the driveway, to painting house numbers on driveway curbs in the neighborhood.
They moved their bedroom furniture from the master bedroom to the corner room in front of the house. They put the head of the bed against the wall facing the picture window that looked out over the front yard so they could watch the rainbow area at all times. Once they even became sexually aroused in the afternoon while the Rainbow was visible. They proceeded to the bed where they made love, of course, in a position where, in the throws of passion, they both could look out the window and see the Rainbow. They both agreed, “It was the best ever!”
It had been two months now, since they had moved into the house and had first seen the Rainbow. Beverly was barely holding onto the position that had afforded them the move to Hawaii in the first place. They had dipped deep into their savings to keep afloat.
The house was a mess. Every dish in the kitchen was dirty and piled in the sink. Trash was gathering in mounds in all the rooms. They weren't’t eating regularly and both had lost over fifteen pounds. They weren’t bathing, shaving or practicing any personal hygiene. They looked like ‘street bums’. They and the house began to stink.
Beverly started smoking cigarettes again. Bob just started smoking more. They both started consuming large quantities of beer, wine and whiskey. They spent the better part of the day camped out on the front lawn, in folding lawn chairs, where Beverly had set up her easel and was trying to paint the Rainbow. Bob got his old guitar out and was trying to write a song about it. With the grass overgrown, beer cans and empty TV dinner trays strewn about, the house and front yard looked more like a slum than the rest of the meticulously kept homes on their block.
They would see their neighbors coming and going, but no one stopped to say a word to them, which they appreciated. They were completely oblivious to the rest of the world around them. As much as they tried, they could not escape the insanity they had fallen into. They just stared at the Rainbow. Not really thinking of it as a thing, or of the
power it had over them. They just had to look at it. They didn’t know why. They just couldn’t stop. They weren’t happy about it anymore, but they weren’t unhappy either.
They were both well educated, well adjusted young adults with above average I.Qs and a great deal of common sense, apparently throwing their lives away. But they couldn’t even express what it was doing to them or how it made them feel. It wasn’t a drug, nor was it a religion. But as with both drugs and religion, it had the capacity to take over their lives, make them do things they would never do ordinarily and drive them insane.
Though they had not said it out loud, they both knew in their hearts, they would have to leave this beautiful place.
The mist from the clouds covering the mountains would continue to fall most every afternoon, conjuring up the Rainbow, and it would take hold of a part of their minds. They were very alive when it was there and emotionally lost when it was not. It was so beautiful.

Meanwhile, in the house directly across the street, an elderly man of Hawaiian descent, his wife and their nine-year-old granddaughter were in their kitchen. The wife was at the sink, cleaning up the dishes from their lunch. The old man sat at the kitchen table, his granddaughter on his knee, looking out the kitchen window at the couple sitting in lawn chairs across the street.
He casually mentioned to his wife, “The young ‘Haoles’ are almost done I think.” He smiled a knowing smile. “Yes,” she agreed as she dried her hands on a towel and draped it across the faucet to dry. “Kukailimoku is doing his job on them alright.” She added. “I’m going to the TV to watch my soap, it’s about time for her to take her nap!” She said as she left the room. “Alright Baby.” He said with a slight chuckle, “I’ll put her to bed in a minute.”
The little girl gazed up at her grandfather and asked, “Grandpa, what’s ‘Kuka,’…’Kuki’, what Grandma said, what is that?” Her eyes became big with eager anticipation of another of her dear grandpa’s stories.
“Well,” he said as he shifted her weight to his good knee, “A long, long time ago, one of our Hawaiian Gods; Lono, the God of rain, made a deal with Kukailimoku, the war God, who they also called, ‘the snatcher of land’. Kukailimoku could claim all the Hawaiian Islands for
himself and the Hawaiian people, if he would help Lono keep non-Hawaiians from over-running our homeland. So he placed a curse on all those who come here from other places, like the Caucasians from the mainland who we call ‘Haoles’. If they can overcome the madness of the Rainbow, they can stay. If not, their own minds will force them to leave, never knowing why.”

Outside, the mist fell from the mountains.