I imagined how they might find my mangled little body up against the dunes tomorrow. Blue and purple between the crabs and bloody roses pressed into my frame. Photo: Mark McInnis
The swell continued to fill into the bay. My options were running out with the tide. The current was now more like a river in flood than the playful stream that floated me to the this corner of the bay a few hours ago. Like that, I had learned how easily a friendly ocean could become a mortal enemy.
I glanced up at the uncaring mountain peaks as the wind chased the last embers off the clouds on their summit. Those colours, so bright and hopeful moments ago, were sliding into the slate of dusk.
Through the spray I saw a figure on the pale sand stagger up the short path to the parking lot. His car was the last. There was the slim chance that he would see me between the fading light and vicious veil cast by the building storm.
I felt the heavy cold metal of the front door key tied into my pocket. I remembered my mother’s words as she had left that morning to visit grandpa in the city. “Don’t be naughty while I’m away. Mr. Stephens will be watching you.” I’d laughed at the thought. She hadn’t seen Mr. Stephen’s cabinet, let alone his rubbish bin. He was probably twisting the cap off his second bottle already. I also heard my brother’s caution, just before he left for term all those weeks ago. “Don’t use my board. There’s no need for you to. I’ll teach you to surf the point when I get home for holidays.”
Yet, here I was; sitting at the top of the point, a cowering speck in a frenzied sea. The lights of the last car flicked on. They pulled back, before casting their beams along the beach and then arcing back to land and turning to show me the red tail-lights as they shrugged off up the road. In those unseeing eyes, my last hope blinked off over the rise. With neither a bicycle, nor a pair of sandals to mark my presence, no one would know I was missing until school tomorrow. Even then, if they came round to the house with Jack or Andy, they would see my board tucked up snuggly in my room. They would search under every hedge, in every ditch before they turned their eyes offshore.
But that didn’t even matter. In this, it would be a miracle for me to survive until daybreak.
A set boomed large at the top of the point. The sound of it struck me as the barrel, an oval darker than the gathering night, stared out accusingly. This was bigger than anything before. Even the gaps between these sets were now well beyond anything I’d dared myself into. And catching one meant paddling in closer to the gnashing teeth of the shelf and risking being caught between that and the incisors ofa set wave. I imagined how they might find my mangled little body up against the dunes tomorrow. Blue and purple between the crabs and bloody roses pressed into my frame. Yet, if I stayed where I was, then maybe, just maybe, a fisherman would spot the gulls pecking at me many miles from here, and shoo them away with an oar before dragging my swollen cadaver over the gunwale. Then pulling on my leash to retrieve the bird stained board, the excrement of me scattered over it. I wondered if they would think to wipe it off before handing it back to my stunned brother. Kyle… what would he do if it was him out here now? What would he be saying to me if he was by my side?
Perhaps I knew then. It didn’t actually matter. I swung my legs back onto the board and plunged my hands in the ink black ocean. I looked up to gauge the oncoming wave, as big as house, and turned the board to face the land.
I visualized the tiny thread of my wake as I would weave between the void of the ocean and the immediate violence of the shore. Then a few steps through the surging shore break, before walking so lightly up the beach, board tucked gallantly under arm, and the sharp stones of the parking lot on my soles. My warm breath in the cool night air, as I padded between the lit up houses, occupants engrossed in suppertime chatter, or staring obliviously into TV sets. I could see the stares on Jack and Andy’s faces as the bell rang us into class the next day. Isa, her gentle smile under a subtle glance, as she would pretend not to overhear me during geography while my two friends quizzed me for details. And in a few weeks time, I could confess to my bro, and witness as his anger and disbelief would slowly turn to pride.
I pulled the thick water as hard as I knew. The wave lifted and drew me back it as it reared and curled. Near the crest, and near vertical, I felt my own momentum take over, as if it was releasing me from its grasp, teasing me with my mortality before lunging for my throat. I put my palms to the deck, pressing my chest up, as I looked towards the tapering line vanishing into the gloom.
