by Jeremy S. GRIFFIN

1.

I sell my things and move to the shore. I learn to surf in­cred­i­bly well and get re­al­ly tan. Women flock to me, the oth­er surfers are afraid of me. Even­tu­al­ly, I meet a girl with a Reef ass who is a bet­ter surfer than I am. She teach­es me the spir­it of the ocean and the ghosts of the waves. We fall pas­sion­ate­ly in love as she chal­lenges me each and every day. One day she comes to me in our mod­est bun­ga­low and tells me she is car­ry­ing my child. We have a boy and name him Dakuwan­ga, af­ter the Fi­jian Shark God. He be­comes the great­est surfer who will ever live.

2.

You take me back af­ter I threat­en to throw my­self off the over­pass near your house. We fall back in­to the same old ar­gu­ments that re­mind us of our hor­ri­ble re­la­tion­ship. You even­tu­al­ly get fed up and dump me again af­ter I come home one night ex­treme­ly drunk and high on mesca­line. You move to Col­orado to do some “save the Earth” stuff and I stick around here to work on my mu­sic. I get a few gigs at this-guy-I-know’s pub, and make a few bucks. Even­tu­al­ly I am do­ing street mu­sic on the cor­ner down­town, and so that’s go­ing pret­ty well for me. Al­so, I have a fan­tas­tic beard and hard­ly ever wear a shirt.

3.

I get in­to a fight at a lo­cal sports bar af­ter State los­es the play­offs. A fight coör­di­na­tor sees me take down a guy twice my size and wants to book me for an ex­po in two weeks. I’ve got noth­ing to lose, so I go for it. The train­ing I un­der­go in those two weeks is ex­cru­ci­at­ing, yet shapes me in­to an awe­some fight­ing ma­chine. My train­er, a tiger named Ra­ja, fol­lows my every move and threat­ens me with her knife-sized in­cisors at every false step. Nonethe­less, I am well pre­pared. The fight hap­pens and I knock the guy out in the first round by dou­ble-round­house kick­ing him fol­lowed by an axe punch to the so­lar plexus. He goes down like a heap of sausage, and I raise my fists to the audience’s cheers. You are in the crowd and you push off the slick-suit guy you are with and his cig­ar falls out of his mouth be­cause he is so in shock. You run in­to the ring and em­brace me; sweat every­where. “Let’s get mar­ried,” I say. You smile and say “Oh hell yeah.”

4.

I die of a bro­ken heart. My soul goes up to Heav­en, where my Grand­ma and my old dog Plu­to are there wav­ing and clap­ping. When I get through the gates, Paul New­man gives me a high five and slow mo­tiony points me to­ward the buf­fet. The clouds make every­thing misty and white, and all the an­gels are very pret­ty naked girls. Every­one else is wear­ing these bluish robes and they are all smil­ing. At the wel­come din­ner buf­fet, I see all the peo­ple I ever want­ed to meet: Kurt Von­negut, James Brown, Al­bert Ca­mus, Ja­nis Joplin, Shan­non Hoon, and my un­cle Steve, who sup­pos­ed­ly al­ways had the best weed. At din­ner, Je­sus comes over and hangs out for a bit. He ends up be­ing a re­al­ly fun­ny guy. Af­ter­ward, Ji­mi Hen­drix, Heath Ledger and I go have drinks at the pool with some of the an­gels. We get wast­ed and the mod­e­lesque ser­aphs make out with us and each oth­er. Some­how we all end up in the hot tub to­geth­er and things get a lit­tle crazy for the rest of eternity.

5.

Af­ter a short, but emo­tion­al heart­break stage, I even­tu­al­ly get on with my life and start to get out there again. I start work­ing out from time to time, and that be­comes a reg­u­lar thing, so I start to feel pret­ty good about the way I look. I work hard and get a pro­mo­tion, and take some busi­ness trips over­seas. Af­ter an ex­tend­ed lay­over in Tokyo, I meet a girl in the air­port who strikes up a con­ver­sa­tion with me in the food court. I buy her a drink at the bar be­fore it clos­es and we both end up miss­ing our flight. We get a ho­tel room over­look­ing down­town Tokyo and make love on top of the sheets with pink neon il­lu­mi­nat­ing the win­dow. She falls asleep on my chest and smiles in her sleep. We make slow, care­ful love in the morn­ing be­fore our resched­uled flight. We keep in touch, and she even­tu­al­ly moves to my area and in­to my apart­ment, and we get a Cor­gi pup­py. We name him Radar be­cause it’s a palin­drome. We get old­er and de­cide to have kids, who end up be­ing re­al­ly great and we take them to theme parks and point out how we are bet­ter than most of the peo­ple there. I run in­to you and you hus­band, Michael at a func­tion in Vir­ginia, I in­tro­duce you to my wife, who is far pret­ti­er than you. I am al­so taller than Michael.

Filed under Fiction on April 18th, 2009

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