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.
