Surfing beneath the surface

 The curtains are black… like my heart. Block out the sun. Combat the heat. Venture out and think of the people we can’t meet. The noise is relentless. Four people at a table and all four talking at the same time. A witch-like voice cackles and rises above the others in a sinister laugh. The bar tender is intelligent, he is well-travelled, he loves music and literature, he is good company. He turns up the jukebox and an assault begins… original music versus the witches coven.

                  Flip flops are vital in this Texas heat, but I see people in jeans and boots. I feel suffocated by their jeans, as if they are a ghostly unit that leaves the legs and attacks innocent bystanders. Social norms passed on and passed on. They stay in the bar to prolong the time before having to go home to the chaos of family. I leave the bar to go home to peace and quiet and calm and escape the noise of the bar. 

                  Arriving home I receive news that makes me fear for those who follow every tradition. Terrified of being alone, terrified of feeling that they have not met society’s expectations, trying to meet their own learned expectations, they get engaged, they get married, they buy houses, they have children. I sincerely hope for their happiness and joy. Internally, I fear for their pain and disappointment that is almost certain to follow. 

                  And now it’s 03:09am, I lie awake having just had a dream that has set my mind ablaze. I was with a girl, one I was deeply in love with almost thirty years ago. It was the present, but she was the twenty-five year ago version. We were about to go to bed at a resort on an island when, suddenly, I got onto a boat and was watching England play soccer on the water… there were surfers and Jude Bellingham was under water on a surfboard, surfing beneath the surface. Then I was overboard, in total darkness, drifting in the ocean, and terrified. When I finally made it to land, I walked into a party filled with people from my past, but I was trying to find a way back to the island, to the girl… I had no idea where that even was.


Southport Beach, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa. 


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