SURF
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The car swung around a sweeping curve and I saw the specks on the ocean bobbing behind the surf like little black birds. We were far north and the scene surprised me. I pulled over into a turnout that was placed on a bluff overlooking the water and shore. The sun had turned to face the waves and reveal their golden plates and I watched the shadowed figures skim across the glimmer.
Eddie stepped next to me, "What are you looking for out there, you never seen surfers before?"
"I'm just looking," I said. But I lied. I was looking for the next wave. I wanted to see it before it washed on shore and destroyed everything in its path.
"Nothing out there but water," Eddie said.
"You don't think there's something inspirational about the place where all the earth's elements come together, the land, sea, and sky."
"I think it's where all the shit from the city washes down to."
"For a person from one of the more romantic cultures, you sure seem to lack romance."
He didn't say anything for quite a while and we stood looking out at the speckled sea. Then he broke the silence, "When I was little my father would pile all of us into the car and drive us a mile or so to a little spot of white sand so we could watch the sun slide into the water. I'll never see that place again."
He turned and headed to the car but I stayed a moment longer, "I thought that." He stopped in his tracks and came back. "I thought that myself," I repeated. "But things change." Maybe his eye caught a glint from the sun but I don't think that's where the look came from.
"You mean what's right or wrong changes."
"No. Right and wrong endure but what we think is right and wrong changes."
We walked back to the car and headed north to cross the border. As we swung onto the road he said, "Thanks for the ride up here."
"No problem. Thanks for introducing me to your cousins."