Final Copy:

No Reality, Only a Friend

The sand slowly sifted between my brittle sea-washed fingers, and the whitened chunks of coral seemed to rise, like the whitewash that took me away so long ago. Pondering the hole in my chest that the ocean filled, the hole of loneliness and sorrow. I can still recall the cool sensation of the wind whipping through my hair, as I hastily ran down the beach, attempting to escape the heat of the blindingly hot sand beneath my callused feet; rushing like one hundred wild tuna, escaping the chasing predator yet unaware of the one looming in the distance. The sharp relief of the blistering cold sea water was oh so familiar to me yet no-matter how many times I experienced it; it continued to shock my senses. The foam now covering my burnt legs, protecting them from the heat of the sun, mixed with the salty grains of sand aggressively attacking my now fully submerged feet was the reason I loved to surf. It wasn’t often understood by others but it feels like the ocean is where I’m meant to be, my place, my home, my friend.

I continued to venture out further. With each footstep another part of my body would be struck with the cold, blistering my skin. The serenity of the ocean, calmed me, gave me a place to think, that was at least, before everything changed.

The wait, the time when it seemed that I was the only living thing as far as the beach would stretch. I lingered in my place, waiting for the perfect time, the perfect current, the wave that would sweep me off my feet and take me away, to hold me in its grasp for as long as I lived. The change of direction in the depths below signalled that it was time. Leaping on to the recently roughened wax of the board like a frog on a lily, I pointed towards the shore. The swift gust of wind followed by beads of water directing themselves to my back brought my attention back to the present. I started to rise, getting higher and higher, butterflies fluttered in my chest, then the sudden acceleration of the wash, the eye, the peak took me away, and that, I will never forget.

Once again the wind whipped through my now damp locks, my burnt feet chased by the predator, my hands, white knuckled and numb clutching on to the board with an intensity to stay with reality, stay with the shoreline. The bobbing up and down of the fins cutting through the rip-tides caused my head to spin. I felt unconscious to all reality, yet awake to the ocean, my friend, the one who would be there to comfort me when everyone and everything