Riding the Wave

Sitting atop his old surfboard amid the rising swells and a glowing sunset over the Pacific, he often wondered what would happen if the buoyancy of water just disappeared. He envisioned that the water was still there but no longer held him and his surfboard afloat, and he would plummet to the bottom of the sea. He couldn’t remember the first time he’d thought about it, but now it came to his mind every time he floated above the open ocean. A speck on a canvas. A flower in a field.

He’d paddled out well past the breakers, where the vast majority of the surfers had posted up to catch some waves. Dirk wasn’t as young as he used to be. Most of the young surfers had taken to calling him “Boomer” these days-- a term he had been unfamiliar with until just recently. When they did, he’d just smile and keep waxing his beat-up longboard. After all, he was still as good as any of those young bucks out on the waves, easily dropping in on eight-footers and stepping to the end of his stick, back and forth, like an aquatic tight-rope walker. But he didn’t have the same endurance he’d had back in the 80s (the Age of the Surfer, according to Dirk) when he’d catch a couple dozen waves, ride in for a beer and a sandwich at The Shore Shack, and then go catch a couple dozen more.

Now in his 55th year around the sun, he was lucky if he could catch three or four waves before losing the motivation to battle the breakers yet again, duck diving under the tumultuous turbulence of the Tamarack whitewash. So instead of riding the shore break with the hard-bodied surfers, grabbing every five-footer he could get his hands on, he was content to sit and wait in the deeper waters. You couldn’t beat the view, after all. The fading sun, now just a few finger-widths from the horizon of the Pacific, was a brilliant lava orange that made the entire scene a warm and shimmering gold. A perfect picture for his golden years.

No, there really was no other place Dirk would rather be. Surfing had been his life. Sure, he was also a computer programmer, a father, a former husband. But surfing was in his blood, in his nature. And when he was on the board, he was free and wild and natural. So here he’d wait for a big one, maybe even a 15-footer. It had been decades since he’d ridden anything that big, but he was sure he could still do it. And he’d heard on the surf report that there was a tropical storm blasting away Baja California right now, which usually meant a few super-sized waves up the Southern California coast. It made him giddy to think about, if a little tired.

“Shark sighting. Please return to shore,” the last words any surfer wanted to hear came from a lifeguard over a loudspeaker who’d driven up in his beachified Jeep Wrangler. A sputter of splashes and kicks created extra whitewash about 200 yards towards shore where the murder of surfers had been posted up. The lifeguard repeated his warning and then planted his red flag on the beach. The flag was the international sign for “stay out.”

“Shit,” Dirk said to no one in particular. He’d only just caught his breath from the initial paddle out to his spot. Having surfed for over 40 years, Dirk had experienced a few run-ins with sharks, and none had been as terrifying as they are in the movies.

In Dirk’s opinion, these great, ancient creatures were just trying to figure out what these awkward-looking humans are and why they entered the shark’s home without invitation. There was no malice. Only perhaps a bit of morbid curiosity. He’d been bitten at Cocoa Beach along the eastern shore of Florida when he went on a surfing trip with his friends. It was a minor bite, mostly just a warning from a bull shark who couldn’t really see what he was doing in the shallow waters.

The other run-ins were just sightings. A little close for comfort, sure. But nothing to write home about.

Now he still couldn’t see the shark, which felt ominous given his situation. He was the deepest of all the surfers, so if the shark was between him and the shore, he might do best to wait it out in hopes that the shark goes north or south along the coastline. As it was, he wasn’t panicking. His old eyes were still sharp and would spot the fin as soon as it came into view. The only problem was the swells were, as he’d predicted, beginning to grow. He could feel his body and board bob up and down on hills of water rather than mounds. This limited the field of vision toward the beach to wherever the last wave that passed him was.

He looked on as minutes passed. By now, nearly all of the other surfers had their feet on steady sand and were looking back toward Dirk. They could see him in the distance, maybe 400 yards or so, bobbing up and down on the rising swells, still beyond the breakers. A blurry blob of a person with a background of blue and gold. The sun was now cut in half by the horizon and dark clouds had abruptly rolled in. Lightning struck an unfortunate patch of the Pacific several miles from the shore.

“Great. Sharks and thunderstorms. Must be my lucky day,” Dirk continued to converse with the elements.

“Dude, get to shore. Shark sighting!” boomed the voice of the lifeguard over the loudspeaker. There was panic in his voice, but still mild. He was young and probably cared more about saving his job than Dirk’s life. The crowd at the shore was watching in wrapped concern as they gazed out at the Boomer.

Dirk thought about yelling back to the shore, asking where the shark was, but he had about a snowflake’s chance in hell of his voice carrying over the breaking waves, which were now at least 12 feet tall when they broke near the shore. And the swells he was rolling over must have been 15 footers.

Moments passed as Dirk looked for the shark. And maybe a good wave.

Lightning crashed again. And the thunder came only a second and a half behind the flash. The storm was getting closer. On top of it all, the set that Dirk had been waiting for had arrived. The waves were beginning to crest further out in the deeper waters, nearing where Dirk floated. These were the waves that he wanted. He chuckled to himself as he realized that he still wanted them, shark or no shark.

He turned his gaze westward toward the vast ocean and his eyes illuminated and went saucer-wide as they trained on approaching mountains of surf. He’d never seen anything like it, not in Southern California anyway. He’d seen them at Mavericks along the north coast, as well as Jaws out in Maui, although he’d never even tried to ride them. Not out of fear, but because the timing had just not been right. But here they were at his doorstep. 25-footers. Maybe even 30. He was riding a roller coaster of swells now, and they were breaking just feet past his spot.

The lifeguard called again but this time Dirk couldn’t make out the words over the crashing monsters before him. He could tell the lifeguard was more frantic now.

Just then, as Dirk was looking to the lifeguard, he spotted it. The fin of a bull shark. Maybe 100 yards away, but moving towards Dirk at a steady clip. As Dirk looked behind him again, there it was. The wave that he’d wanted all his life.

A thought passed through his brain, brief but bright as the lightning that continued to strike, closer now. Should he do this? If he wiped out, he’d basically be chum. Hell, the wave alone might kill him. But it didn’t matter. This was Dirk’s nature. This was the moment he’d been waiting for, and no shark or lightning or lifeguard was going to take it away from him.

He paddled into the wave as it lifted him high into the stormy sky. It felt surreal. He was riding a liquid skyscraper, piercing the clouds as he jumped up, two feet steady on the board. It was magic and horror and thrill. Man had conquered the sea with the sport of surf, gliding above its dark, unknowable depths like the bird had conquered the skies. And Dirk, if for just a moment, was the king of the ocean. He began to descend the face of the wave, dropping along its surface in stories of thrill and treachery. He was filled with the joy of achieving purpose. The moment lasted seconds. The moment lasted forever.

Just then, he hit a bump on the face of the wave, and everything, including his joy and the endless weight of the wave came crashing down on him. The leash on his surfboard instantly broke and he was tossed and turned like a rag doll in a washing machine. He tumbled for what felt like hours and he kept falling and falling to the secret depths of the sea.

When the wash cycle was finally done with him, the ocean was still and dark and quiet. He stood at the bottom, peaceful now and not rising to the top as the human body should. But he also noticed that he wasn’t struggling for air. Dirk looked around in confusion. He tried to swim up to the surface but could gain no traction. His arms and legs cut through the water like it was air. He was going nowhere.

Seconds passed. Out of the corner of Dirk’s eye, a flit of gray bolted beyond him on his right side. Swish. Swish. Swish. Then on his left. The ocean swirled around him in terrifying swooshes of speed. The silence of the moment magnified his fear. There are no footsteps at the bottom of the ocean. But he could just hear the swish, swish, swish.

Then a shark, presumably the one he’d seen at the surface, slowly but intentionally swam up to Dirk. They were face to face now. There was no aggression from the shark, only that morbid curiosity. And Dirk was amazed to find that he could understand the shark. He could read his thoughts. And that the shark could read his.

“What are you doing down here?” asked the shark.

“I- I was surfing. And-”

“Surfing?”

“Oh, uh, ya. I love the ocean.”

“I understand. I love the ocean, too. It looks like you hurt yourself.”

Dirk looked down and noticed a somewhat large cut across his abdomen. Probably from the fin of the surfboard as he fell.

“Ah shit,” Dirk touched the cut and looked back at the shark. “Surfing is a dangerous sport, I guess.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s just my nature.”

“I understand. And I hope you understand what is in my nature.”

Dirk understood. And he didn’t begrudge the shark. Dirk was bleeding. Dirk was in the shark’s home. It was in the shark’s nature. And as the shark reared back for his attack, Dirk chuckled to himself again, realizing that if he could go back in time, he still would have ridden the wave. Even if it meant wiping out. Even if it meant falling to the depths of the sea. Even if it meant being devoured by the shark. Because for a few seconds, just a few seconds, he really, truly lived. And then he was gone, forever within the nature of the sea.