The long haired boy–man walked straight into the ocean in all his clothes. He started at the edge of the sand and he walked and he walked and he walked and he walked. It was low tide, but he was persistent. The water was up to his ankles now, up to his knees, up to his chest, at his neck. He seemed a mile out. His sweat dissolved into a salty oneness with endless sea. I stood down the beach by the lifeguard tower, and watched. I wondered whether he would stop at all, and a tiny part of me worried that he would keep going, dragged down by the weight of the boundless. Just as I was determining whether I should call for help, he stopped. The waves lapped at his chin. I was moored there, unable to tear my eyes away from this hairy, engulfed Jesus. I began to imagine all the people that he might be, all the stories that might be encompassed in this vast gesture of either genuine or complete surrender to nature, or don’t−care−because−I−physically−can’t capitulation. Or, wait. Oh dear. Were those floating pants? Seaweed. False alarm.
Perhaps:
As a young boy, Harold had been brought up on a steady diet of polo and nice sweaters. By the age of eight, he was an impeccable dancer and Cotillion aficionado (with a penchant for using words like penchant and aficionado). Harold’s family was an incubator of politicians, and he was slated to take over the American west. At fifteen, his family moved to Wyoming because they wanted to give him the best shot at the senate. To “ensure that our western branch is suitably fortified.” One day at the end of an afternoon of baby kissing and handshaking and town hall rabble rousing, he looked down at his suitably folksy spit shined (with someone else’s spit, of course) boots, and began to cry. They were tears of rage and confusion. It was a strange moment. All of the sudden it was a realization that his entire existence had been scripted and crafted and molded. He took off his boots. He wondered of the barefoot life. He made a rash decision. Sneaking out the back of the gas station where the campaign bus had stopped, he grabbed his wallet, left his shoes, and determined not to look back until he knew, really knew, his unscripted life. One day he reached the ocean, and saw no reason to stop at the waters’ edge. He had walked to the edge of the unknown.
Or:
Until he almost drowned, Enrico had been deep, deeply in love with water. Every sweltering day and balmy night of summer his mother said, “You, my dear, are a fish.” And this boyfish went on a rafting trip with his cousins. Idaho, Class IV. The afternoon sun winked on the water. These rapids should have been a joyous surge of splashy adrenaline. Instead, he found himself bouncing out of the rubber raft, caught in a whirling tumblerush of clearest water. He saw with perfect clarity its clarity, which seemed strange to him. Pebbles and twigs and the immense pressure and weight overcame him. The icy pings hit his chest as his head struggled to make sense of direction. His mind told him to stay calm, but his body reacted faster. The cold made it hard to breathe, and he felt his chest tighten. Breaths caught in his throat. That moment kept coming back to him, years and years and years later. It would hit him in the bath. In the rain. In particularly dense fog. The pressure that made him feel as if at any moment his chest might explode. He was no longer a fish, and he skirted the threat by intricately crafting a life on land. And then there was today. Today, the day of his mother’s funeral. “You my dear, are a fish.” It echoed in his brain and his mind wrapped around it and would not let it go. He left the crushingly, chokingly compiled grief with his aunts at the reception and walked walked walked walked until he felt the water surround him instead.
Maybe:
Two weeks earlier, Charlie had been on a bus of roaming hippies. They had parked at the top of a hill in Golden Gate Park and built a massive slip n’ slide. It was a recipe for plastic burn, but honestly…why not? The San Fransisco fog had abated for a moment. It was refreshing, and so so so free. He sprinted towards the plastic sheet and, four somersaults and a monumental slide later, arrived LIBERATED, at the bottom. It was here he encountered three young onlookers. To them he said “LIFE! Is about participation! Take off your pants and embrace the slip n slide!” They giggled, considered the approaching dusk, and sought the warmth of a coffee shop instead. Or a BART station. Anything really. Not long after, the community they had enjoyed had started slipping (so to speak) and Jeri’s temper, at the end, had ripped it to shreds. Luca, who owned the bus, had declared it the end of an era, and unceremoniously dumped everyone by the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz to “discover the mystery of their futures.” After a few days of bumbling amazement at the glories of the power trees, the redwoods, he rideshared down the coast and had somehow found himself in Newport Beach. It was bizarre and sterile and he felt like it was some kind of crazy Stepford utopia that was about to come crashing ‘round his ears. So he decided to test his dreamself and walk deep, deep into the water. Trying to figure out if he was, in fact, awake. He needed to shake himself back to knowing feeling again.
But then again, it could be simple:
There was a college day party down the street. After too many drinks to be there or to think anything else, he had distantly heard, “Walk that way. Ocean breeze will help.” And he did. And he waited.
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