The sun shone down on the bronzed shore as the waves crashed with an insistent fury that permeated the air so that one hardly noticed the continuous sizzle of the breaking waves. I sat alone, perched on a soft dune of sand, gazing out across the beach to the wild surf that rushed to the shore with an urgent need to hurl itself upon a damp stretch of brownish sand and cease to exist.

The shimmering sun continued to pound the beach with rays of unseen light as I sat quaking with fear. Thoughts of death, disfigurement and drowning rushed through my mind as my heart beat louder and louder until it began to drown out the unceasing sound of the turbulent sea. Questions, confusing questions bounced off the walls of my mind.

Would I be able to make it past the hammering breakers to the calm undulating expanse of bluish green meadow where the surfers grazed, their appetites never satiated by the glistening glassy lines that formed on the horizon, rushed to the shore, and perished in the frenzied chaos of the shorebreak? Would I be able to glide on the wedges of water as the others did with the panache of a bullfighter insouciantly taunting death? Would I feel the smooth rhythm of the water as I flew up and down the sparkling face of the wave while it pushed to the shore? Could I swallow my heart and freefall down the monstrous face in order to experience the gentle rhythm of the wave? The answer to these questions I did not know, but I was determined to find out. n