#Flash Friday – 7 September 2012 – Prompt: “Broken”

The two young men stood on the bluff with the hoods of their thick sweatshirts pulled over their heads, their arms stiff, pressing both hands deep into the pockets of their faded jeans in an effort to ward off the chill of the morning breezes.  The wind blew cold from the inland valley and then offshore to the lines of waves marching in from the North Pacific.  It was what they were hoping for.

As so often happened when the sun warmed the earth from inland, the winds would invariably shift to an on shore direction and blow hard enough to destroy any hope the surfers would have of satisfying what became an addiction for both of them.

They were driven to wake early on winter mornings in hopes of standing inside of a fluid green room on nothing more than a sliver of ridged foam covered in fiberglass.  Standing up in the tube, the magical and temporary space inside of a large breaking wave where every surfer strives to be.

“How big to do you think it is?” Ajax asked the other surfer standing beside him.

“Five, maybe six feet, it looks clean though.  We should get out there before the wind comes up and blows it out,” said Ian as he watched the last wave of the set break and peel around the protection of the cape that jutted out to the north from where they stood.

“No, it’s bigger than that,” Ajax insisted.  “Look at how long it takes for them to break.  You can almost count the seconds it takes for the lip to crash out into the flat water.  I’d say it’s definitely overhead, maybe even bigger.  I’m glad I brought my seven-six.”

Ian being shorter than Ajax by a half a head is one of those surfers who for whatever reason is compelled to always say that the waves look smaller than they really are.  Ajax knew this about his friend.  He knew it was Ian’s way of getting psyched up.

As the waves wrapped around the point, the lines from each swell curved and slowed down conforming to the contour of the sea floor.  The offshore wind was just strong enough to blow the tops off each wave in a mist of vapor and spray before breaking in a violent confusion of white frothing salt water.  The lines of broken white soup eventually ground themselves into the sand and rocks waiting on the shore.

During the intervals between each set of waves, the offshore winds cleaned up the confused water caused by the energy of each breaking wave.  The lulls between sets were just long enough for a surfer to paddle out into the line up before another set came through making it impossible to punch through the shore break.

“Come on, let’s go,” said Ian.

One of the things I love about the concept of “Prompts” and “Flash Fiction” is the process I go through when deciding what to write about.  I’m always conscious of being true to the five minutes I give myself to produce something I hope will be thought provoking.  However, I’m probably in violation of the intent of using a prompt in this fashion because I like to think about it ahead of time.  All said, I’m not one to let a rule interfere with creativity, so long as no one loses an eye.

This week’s prompt “broken” nearly had me stumped because I didn’t want to get onto a depressing subject.  Just as I was about to succumb to writing about broken promises or the broken man, something completely different popped into my head.

At first I was thinking of the musical concept of broken chords and arpeggios.  Then I recalled a documentary I saw about Pink Floyd and the making of their moniker album, “Dark Side of the Moon.”  I remembered a comment made by Roger Waters while discussing the simplicity of the song “Us and Them.”  He described the space in between the music as being just as important as the sounds created by the instruments and vocals.

The concept of space within art, regardless of medium is something that I pondered all week.  I thought of how space is created in the various art media and forms, from ballet to oil paintings.  I had to ask myself how writers create that magical space between words or ideas.

I admire the economy of the poet who can eliminate words that don’t contribute to meaning.  I’m equally fascinated with the novelist who can evoke emotion in the reader causing them to ponder a point, an idea, or to create an image matching a scene in a passage just read.