Synthetic Tubes

My feet burn. My neck hurts. My left arm is asleep. And my right arm died long ago, along with the first three layers of skin on my back.

I try carrying the board over my head in a last hope effort to escape the noon o’clock summer sun, but the cold water wax that has been on there since last February doesn’t stand a chance, melting into a dirty goo and then into my scalp.

The black asphalt starts to bend and warp in front of me. I fear at any moment the trail will turn into a river of molten tar.

I accept the onset of heat exhaustion, waving to the polar bear doing cartwheels across the path. He returns the gesture. I think once I saw a show where a man in the desert uses his own fluids on himself to stay cool. I might have given it a try if all of the fluids in my body hadn’t evaporated out of my little finger.

I am running now, figuring my chances of disintegrating into nothing more than a silhouette on the trail seem very possible. And before someone draws with wax across my remains I reach the ocean. It is blown out and two inches. So I go blue tarp surfing instead. Finding shade in the s\synthetic toobs.