CURL

Around the time my younger brother Brian’s son Rico was born Brian said, “You’ve spoiled rainbows for the rest of us.” Brian was teaching Dan and I to surf. What Brian, becoming a father, didn’t say was, “The last unicorn is dead! Someone will fall from grace.” That would forever be me plummeting broken winged from my borrowed surfboard into the amniotic sea. The sky a smoking crystal haze, the sea a lustrous living glacier, rained surfers in a rainbow of skins taking the curls lubricated angels astride unicorns hunting heaven.

Brian a patient teacher, instructed by example, greasing the waves, a blasphemy of perfection. Dan, a perpetual A student ascending, rose an archangel embracing the ocean’s challenge Mercury charming each assaulting wave like a message from god. Dragged from the pounding surf with little to show but a testament of water up my nose, I, a drowned Ophelia chanted, 'Air, water, fire earth', unwillingly taking my place in the corner a dunce, soggy cap askew my sodden soaking head as a pride of unicorns galloped up the beach.