Water Tower

Flash Fiction

My life is not mine anymore. Dull gray scrubs, irritating fluorescent lights, and every face around me is raging mad or hauntingly sad or utterly despondent. For 12 years, I maintained numbness to the routine of death and paperwork followed by bad TV, lazy meals, and dissatisfied women.

When I’m honest, I remember I’ve never felt right.

The void, like a black distant wave growing closer and larger, occasionally appears in my mind's eye, so I find a way to cut the image before it reaches me. I train my mind's eye to - look over there! A 6-pack of beer and huge pair of tits. And there! A new Lamborghini, electric blue, finally mine, turning every head.

Natalie and Kristina. Serena and Frankie. Lily. Fuck. Lily - left. The black wave in me now sky high, towering, heavy like cement, partially pooling around my ankles so that I couldn’t shake it off. A warning so visceral I couldn’t cut the picture. It singed in the back of my brain.

5 am, I watch dark rolling waters of Waimea Bay crash around - short and tall, over sand and rocks, always terrifyingly powerful. “I won’t be coming to work anymore. I’m sorry.” There’s no one else to contact.

The scene outside and the scene within me melt into a vivid hallucination—the void descends like a pressure change in the atmosphere like the way a foggy morning consumes and distorts everything into the eerie. The black suctions backward, readying for the towering wall to lurch and obliterate. I will walk forward and let it wash me out.

“Yo! Dr. Kent! Morning. She’s a gorgeous sight, ain’t she? This is my favorite spot in Waimea. You meditating?” An athletic, vibrant man with a face not angry or sad or despondent stakes a surfboard into the sand, leaning on it while intently smiling down at me.

“Y-Yeah, meditating. You’re about to surf?” I can’t help that my face is not smiling back. My face is twisted in confusion from the sudden break of my melancholic trance, trying to place who this person is (past patient), and I am bewildered that anyone (not suicidal) would go up against the dark engulfing waves armed with just a plank of resin-coated foam.

Surfer says to me, “Hell yeah!”

My face slips a bit from the knotted-up expression of confusion to a more slacked look of shock.

“Don’t worry. I’ll only go in the ocean when the sun rises soon. I like coming early and visualizing all kinds of rides and waves.”

He motions his hands around, conjuring up mini scenes with them he’s probably experienced dozens of times, saying, “I like thinking about how I want to level up my ride and how I want to feel out there.”

“How you want to feel out there?” I toss back.

“Yeah. I want to feel calm and confident, trusting myself to figure out and flow with any wave pattern.” His demeanor still reflects light-hearted enthusiasm, but there's a felt energy of grounded enlightenment in how he connects with the turbulent waters.

“Have you ever tried surfing, Dr. Kent?”

“No.”

Surfer scans my eyes and declares, “It’s never too late.”

“Sure it is. It feels too late. I couldn’t do what you do.”

Surfer turns to gaze back at the ocean, his hands motioning again while he talks, and says, “Nah, I saw 80-year-olds picking up their first board. The trick is to focus on the horizon, not the waves, and then let your body lead, not your mind.”

“Focus on the horizon, not the wave?” I can’t help but wonder why he would advise this, so I ask.

“Right. When you’re in the water, you wanna zoom out - focus more on the horizon. Being too zoomed in on a wave - you lose sight of a path, get unbalanced, and break your connection. That's how not to surf. The horizon anchors you to see more than just that wave in front of you; then you’re receptive to the magic of surf.”

Sunlight begins to crack to life now, bursting pink, purple, orange, and blue above the water, no longer cold and black.

“I really appreciate the way you cared for my grandma. Even though she didn’t make it, I could tell you did everything you could.” Surfer’s slight smile twitches into a momentary frown, and his eyes get glassy. “I noticed how you looked when you told my dad. I was down the hall, but I could tell. Thank you.”

I nod, feeling a twist inside me as I recall the family, the diagnosis, the empty hospital bed.

“Hey, if you’re up for your first surf lesson tomorrow, I have an extra board. I’m a pretty good teacher, and I think you’d like it.”

I’m silent as I look again at the waves - shimmering blends of topaz and aquamarine now catching light and creating crests sparkling like diamonds.

“5:30 tomorrow? What do you say, doc?”