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The swell marched across the Pacific, massive, the biggest in decades. Enough to get the excitement flowing and the fear rumbling. It would hit the coast in a matter of days. Surfers discussed it at bars and jobs and beaches. With each beer quaffed and each hour closer to doomsday the bravado grew bigger, an arms-race of swagger.
This was the challenge they'd been waiting for their entire lives. Old grudges would be settled. Reputations would be made or lost. Men would discover what they had and what they lacked and after the swell things would never be the same.
They made preparations. They cleared schedules. They hugged small children.
But when the swell arrived it was cloaked in wind and cloud and rain. Days of it, unsurfable. When the storm left, so did the swell.
Not this time.
And a collective sigh of relief descended over the coast.
END
(First
published in
Boston
Literary Magazine)
www.tommahony.net
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