A Lesson to Be Learned

       What is paradise? Is it a real place, or is it an ever-evolving idea of an unobtainable perfection?

To be straight, it's where I live; at least that's what the seasonal yahoo's keep sayin. For me, it's always been home. Some might ask, “Does living in paradise therefore make it not paradise?” I would answer, for me, no; this is most definitely still paradise. It’s always sunny and nice, except when it’s stormy or raining. It's got white sandy beaches and clear blue ocean as far as the eyes can reach. What's not great about that? For me though, it's the ocean, not so much the land. The ocean and I have been tight since the day my little baby foot first stepped in. Once I was big enough to board, the land couldn't keep me long enough to dry off. Surfin is the one thing that makes sense to me, you know? Learning to feel, smell, taste, and hear her to the point you can tell from standing out on your door step whether she was puttin out or layin chill. When you’re on your board rollin barrel and it's so sunny that you can see the sky through the barrel turning everything blue, on that day you'll never give her up. But even in paradise there are demons, and twelve years ago today, I met a few.

        It wasn't a perfect day to board, but she was puttin out and I was ready to get in her. It was 80 degrees and about 50 percent sunny, 50 percent cloudy. You’re probably sayin “what the hell, that's a nice day.” That's not nice, but it ain’t bad either. So I called a few spares, and next thing I knew Tino, Checkers, and yours truly where surfin some choice double-over-headers at the off season beach. You see, where I'm from there are two seasons: tourist season and off season. During tourist season, the locals go to the quieter and less crowded off season beach, which is not as well maintained but still choice, like a diamond in the sand. I think that's how it goes? During off season, we migrate back to the now nearly vacant tourist beach, which is nicer. It was off season when it happened, and we like to make the off season beach our own spot in off season because no one other than the occasional secret make-out session is ever there. Any way, we had been out for a few hours, just shredding waves, when they started to settle and we were left bobbin 600 or so meters from shore, and that's when things got nutty.

        “Totally weak!” Checkers screamed out as he threw his hands up, flailing and kicking his legs.

Then he leaned back very calm-like and said, “Well I got some wicked bud in my pack bro's, you wanna partake?”

        We quickly checked the beach for the red and blue, or any folks in general, but mostly the fuzz, and to our delight there was nobody.

        “Man, I love the off season,” Tino yelled out, right before we started to paddle in.

        The water was blue and pretty clear, but we had been having storms all week and that shakes up the sands making the water cloudy, so I couldn't see the bottom. The sun had just broken past a 45 minute cloud that had lingered over head, so we stopped for a second and soaked up a few rays. I was lying with my back on my board, with my hands and legs in the water, livin the high life when Tino yelled out the “S” bomb.

        “SHAAARK!”

        We quickly got all our limbs out of the water and looked where his finger was pointing as a huge dark shadow, just low enough to not make out what it was, swam slowly towards us. Sharks are just part of the game when you surf, so you put it out of your head and enjoy the water, but just mention of the word can get your heart racing when your 600 meters out.

        “That's too big to be a shark you dweeb, it's gotta be 30 feet at least. It's probably a whale or a school of fish,” I hollered back at Tino.

        “Great whites get that big don't they? Let’s just get the hell outta the mix,” Tino replied, as we watched it turn and swim back out to deeper water.

        “No, they don't get that big. They are like 20 feet long max, and that thing was massive,” I pointed back in the direction it had swam.

        “No worries you two poindexters, ‘cus now that bud is sounding even nicer,” Checkers said as he took off to shore, and Tino followed right behind.

        I sat back enjoying the sun for just a second longer than I should have as something very big with lots of teeth grabbed my right leg. It felt like a million knives had been stuck in my leg from shank to foot. It yanked me off my board with no effort as I was pulled in the mix. It let go as soon as I was under water. When I opened my eyes, I could see the most massive, great white swimming away from me. A kind of terror like you can never know, until you are in the water with the world’s biggest great white who's just tried to eat your leg, froze me in place. I couldn’t even kick my big toe I was so scared.

        The shark swam around me, circling and diving under me, then coming back at me only to cut away from me when he was within a few feet. He was just sizing up his meal, I thought. Then he turned back at me and slowed to a near stop just a few feet from me and turned broad side. The shark looked cold and calculated as it watched me with its jet black, jewel-like eye. I looked deep in to that gigantic, never ending black eye, and that was the wakeup call that snapped my legs and arms into motion. It was completely silent, other than my heartbeat, until I broke the surface and heard the frantic yelling of Tino and Checkers.

        “SHAAARK!!!” I yelled with all my power.

        They started without thought to swim back out to me, but as I climbed on my board, I waved for them to get to shore. They didn't listen. Instead, they stopped and waited for me to catch up as I left a trail of blood washing off the back of my board. They could see the water changing color behind me and yelled for me to hurry. I was scared out of my mind, and it must have been the adrenaline, because everything was very clear and I didn't feel much pain, other than the sting of saltwater. I watched as this beastly monster swam under me the entire way, like a cat that keeps letting a mouse get away, just to catch it again. I am not a big guy, only 5'11 and 155lbs, 158 when my hair is wet, and this thing made me feel insignificant and completely helpless to its will. Whenever it came too close for comfort, we pulled our arms and legs tight to the board as if it would help. While we waited for it to dive back down, I reached back through my shredded shorts to feel the wound and my middle finger slipped inside my leg to the second knuckle with ease, causing a very serious pain to jolt my entire body. After it disappeared, we paddled even harder to shore, and seconds later the leviathan hit the back of my board just inches from my feet. I looked back expecting to see my life in fast forward, but all I saw was a big gray fin dipping back under the water.

        “Stop toying with me you muther F*cker!” I yelled as Tino and Checkers picked their own four letter words to scream.

        We were about halfway home when three more dark figures appeared in front of us, less than half the size of the great white demon that stalked me, but it’s really not the big sharks you have to worry about most the time, it's the medium ones that cause the most hell.

        Tino started to cry as the ten foot shadows turned and came right at us. We all stopped paddling and pulled our limbs in as tightly as we could.

        “Maybe it's dolphins Tino, they chase sharks off right?” Checkers tried to cool down Tino's freak out, but as the shadows got near us they went right under us and the worst case scenario happened. My bleeding leg brought three nice sized tiger sharks in to feed, and they are particularly nasty bastards. Nature’s garbage disposals, my Nanna use to call ‘em. I have seen more than one fishermen cut open a tiger shark thinking he got a man eater and found empty boots, pop cans, plastic food containers, or any other thing you would find on a beach, boat, or in a house. They eat it all!

        The tiger sharks immediately started to hit our surfboards with their bodies and tails. When that proved fruitless, one of them took it up a notch. I watched as the shark swam out and turned back at me picking up speed. At the last second, as I watched its coal black eyes roll back and its chainsaw jaws open, I leaned to the left of my board and gave it a mouth full of fiberglass, but now I was back in the water. By the time I got my bearings, the tiger shark was making his second approach. The tiger shark was really picking up speed, and as the sun was slowly passing from behind the clouds giving me a clear look at my doom, I watched as he opened that toothy trap. Seconds before the shark got me, the gigantic great white returned with fury, snatching the tiger shark up in it jaws, and burst out of the water into the air thrashing what looked like a toy shark in its grasp, to death. Blood sprayed into the air as the tiger shark was nearly ripped in two.

        I climbed back to my smashed up surfboard and balanced as best I could, but I could not believe what I had seen… It was like the great white used me for bait to attract the other sharks so he could eat them; but, he didn't eat it. He was just pissed the other sharks attacked his prey before he could finish it. I wasn't gonna give any of them that chance, so I paddled as hard as I could. Then, something hit the back of my board again. The great white was pushing my board with its nose so hard it brought the tip of my board up off the water and sent me shooting at the shore even faster, and as I passed Tino and Checkers, it dove back down into the depths.

        I looked over my shoulder at Tino and Checkers who were shoulder to shoulder haulin’ ass behind me with their jaws gaping. Off their right side, a striped fin came out of the water 20 feet from them and was picking up speed. I had to keep looking ahead to watch for rocks so I quickly checked back and forth, and each time I looked back the fin was a little closer, until I looked back and seen the great white grab the tiger shark by its face, like a truck hitting a little kid. The hit was so close to Tino and Checkers, and so fierce, that it nearly knocked them off their boards. They struggled to stay afloat and paddled even harder than they knew they could. After seeing that, they had not problem catching up to me, and the rest of the way to shore there was no sign of the third tiger shark, or any fish, just the massive great white below us until it was too shallow to follow.

        As soon as it was shallow enough to walk safely, I abandoned my broken ass board and started to hobble and fall my way to shore. Tino and Checkers got on each side of me and helped me along while carrying their boards. The pain got worse the farther from the ocean I got, and really sucked as I laid on the sand looking at the countless puncture marks in my right leg. The wounds were not torn or threshed open, but very clean. Checkers got his phone out of his back pack and called emergency, then came and sat down next to Tino and me. Screaming out in pain, I tied my white t-shirt as high up my thigh as I could to help stop the bleeding.

        “You guys still want to partake? The way I see it, they will have to use the old two track trail because the main road is out, so we got about 10 minutes.” Checkers held out the dooby and chuckled.

        “After that shit! Why not?” I said as he lit it up.

        We passed that joint around till it was roached, and watched the great white as it paced up and down the beach. As the ambulance sirens entered within earshot, the monstrous great white stopped for a second in front of me like it could see me on the beach where I was sitting, thrashed its tail, and swam off.

        That day, the biggest great white shark ever seen on the shores of our little island taught me a lesson that I hold dear to this day, and will for every day to come.

The Choice

       In life, there are choices we must all make, unavoidable and always changing. These choices are big and small, but each holding its own weight and having ramifications reaching farther than most would care to follow. The choice to get up and go to work, or to call in sick and take it easy, could go much deeper once you look past the surface. Say you called in to work and your wife came home unannounced with another man; had you went to work that day, you would be blissfully unaware. On the other hand, say you did go to work, and on the way a gas tanker jackknifed and killed you and twenty other people. That's cause and effect for ya, and it can be a pain in the ass. What if you were given a choice so monumental that it affected not only those around you, but every last thing on the planet?

        It was midnight, and I was fresh out of work, when I got the choice that changed everything. I was at a stoplight on the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and 108^th Street, jammin out with the radio, when a black male wearing a skull face bandana and black hoodie shoved a silver Glock in my face, yelling for me to get out of the car.

        I had been mugged before, and this time was the cherry on top of the shit Sunday I had been handed in life. “This guy isn't gonna shoot me if I just drive off,” I said to myself, just before trying to gun it through the red light. I called the wrong bluff and the carjacker shot twice… the first hitting me in the throat, and the second in the side of my head.

       I was killed instantly, and he drove off with my car as I bled out in the street. There was no tunnel with a bright light or any stereotypical after life cliché… just bitter terrifying darkness. Not like a dark room, but a void absent of anything but myself. So dark I couldn't even see my hand an inch in front of me.

        Soon came a man’s voice, not very loud but loud enough, as though it was on the edge of my mind, or barely within earshot. It called my name and recounted the last moment of my life, which I felt was a disgustingly unfair death, because I was a good guy. Had I been a gang-banging punk, it would be more fitting, but I worked hard and never got in anyone’s way. As the voice spoke, dark smoke rolled past my feet, creating a platform, as far as I could see, on which I now stood.

        I was not a churchy person, or God fearing, but by no means an atheist either. I had just never seen enough to believe or disbelieve, and the place I was in had a similar feeling. The man told me to turn around, and a few feet from me there was a round black pedestal with a large red button on top. In the already black void, the pedestal shimmered at the edges to create an outline, but it was the red button that demanded my attention. I questioned the button over and over in my mind, knowing very well that the voice would tell me its purpose.

        “Do you know me child?” The man called out to get my attention.

        “God?” I sheepishly replied.

        “In life, you knew me not. But in death, there is no doubt in you about who I am.”

        I couldn't say a thing as my mind shivered in fear of damnation. My eyes were locked on the button the entire time he spoke.

        “Before you is a choice, both simple and complex, more important than any decision of all your fore fathers. I have grown tired of humanity and their debaucherous, arrogant ways. I see it fit that a man of your age (only 38) and of your belief, neither in God nor against God, should choose the world’s fate. The choice is this… Presses the button, and the entire population of the planet shall be reduced to zero. Those whom were good, equitable people will receive eternal salvation, as will any child under the age of seven. All others will be judged on their actions, for those who were neither good nor bad shall forever reside in limbo. Those who were evil and inequitable will burn in the pits of hell and will not be given a chance at redemption. This choice I give to you.”

        Bringing myself to speak before God was a near impossible task as my voice hid in his presence, so for a while I sat silent, judging all of the people I knew. Sorting my family and friends according to who I thought would be joining me in heaven and who would end up in limbo. As for the evil people of the world, my mind did not think twice about condemning them to hell. “How many people,” I asked myself “would I be denying a chance at redemption?” If God thinks me worthy of judgment, then I must be; so, I continued.

        My thoughts then shifted to my nieces and nephews and their innocents, two of which are teenagers, but pretty good kids from what I hear every few months. One is nine years old and too young to truly offend God, but it was the youngest that I thought of the hardest. Four of them were under the age of seven and guaranteed a place in God’s kingdom, by his own words.

        The world is a much scarier place than when I was a child, and even then it was scary. The planet seems to be convulsing as earthquakes level third world cities, and tsunamis decimate the coast lines. Nature has turned rabid from constant polluting and strip mining, as we steal what we want from a well-oiled machine and give it in return, poisonous clouds and rivers. We use weather modification weapons in secret to kill our enemies, with no thought to what the high density microwaves or scalar waves will do to the ecosystem. We blindly blaze a trail in the name of scientific discovery, rarely finding cures for sickness and disease, but always finding new ways to kill each other. We create new disease and weaken ourselves by pumping all kinds of vaccines and medicine to avoid the common cold. New super flues, impervious to common medicine, have wiped out one tenth of China's population. Children are beginning to sexually experiment by the time they hit fourth grade and are fully active by sixth. The divorce rates are so bad that only six percent of marriages last past ten years, and the number of bastard children dumped on the state is up by fifty six percent. The world is spinning out of control, and I have been tasked with ending the evil for good.

        I held my hand over the button and called out to God.

        “I have chosen, and I chose to end the evil and to save the innocent.” I confidently stated as my hand began to fall.

        As the button clicked, the smoke at my feet became fire that rose around me, consuming my flesh. I had chosen wrong.