Surfing USA

[Cuddlefish]

The roaring wave will crest soon. You know it will. This isn't your first rodeo, so you can see the signs, and the signs you can't see, you sense. The choppy sea explodes around you in giant emissions of debris. The wave behind you swells.

You space your feet out on the board, and crouch slightly at the knee to steady your balance, with eyes to the shore. You shift your body weight low, so you can try to build some speed. When this thing hits, it's gonna hit hard.

And the water, it's not wet. Oh no. It's hard and spikey, shooting bits of shrapnel every time a wave crashes. Barbed wire and cinderblocks, flying by your head. You see another fellow sportsman bite the dust to your right. The churning sea swallows him without a thought, buried beneath crumbling concrete and tendrils of steel cable. You get pelted by some plastic and a rusty nail or two from the splash. Mostly harmless, so long as you don't get hepatitis.

But the wave coming up behind you, now that's the big one, and you're gonna ride that motherfucker, one way or another. Do you have a choice? Ride or Die. It's like your mantra. You keep your eyes to shore.

Ride or Die. You say it to yourself repeatedly, as another surfer approaches. It looks like his board shit the bed, and he's looking at you kinda funny. He comes in close and makes a grab for you. A quick dodge to the left sends him off balance. He totters, looks at you a different kind of funny, and falls. Ground into a pink mist and dust by the waves. It's nothing personal. Maybe even something you would do yourself, given a shitty board and a wave the size of the world trade center bearing down on you.

You make a quick check for cuts and scratches, then eyes back to shore. You think about a quick glance over the shoulder, to check the progress of the tidal wave, but you know it's there; you can see it's shadow in your peripherals. So eyes to shore. You can't actually see it, so much as you can sense it. So you keep your eyes to shore.

[Triple Zero]

I love the imagery of surfing on a wave made of barbed wire, plastic and cinderblocks!

[Cuddlefish]

I love the imagery of surfing on a wave made of barbed wire, plastic and cinderblocks!

Thanks! I had a vision of it after my morning dosage. The visual aspect was really the point of the piece, the rest of the meaning was ascribed as I typed.