and then you go to the beach, and the surf doesn’t look that great and the tide is wrong and there’s wind somewhere maybe and there’s too many guys out and not enough waves coming through.

so you lie in the sand and laugh at stupid jokes that don’t mean much of anything but seem pretty fucking funny at the time. and more dudes keep showing up and you just lie there in the warm sand watching.

look another closeout. do you think it’ll get better. maybe around sunset. it probably needs more tide.

and you think surfing is pretty stupid, really, but then so are a lot of things.

and the sun slides lazily down the curving sky and out in the water they scan the horizon for one last elusive wave, that wave like no other.

and then you walk back down the beach with your dude in the soft caress of the evening light and you think maybe you didn’t really need to surf at all.

maybe it was perfect just the way it was.