THE PAMPHLET

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surf stories

THE PAMPHLET

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THE PAMPHLET

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nusa fiction surf stories

THE PAMPHLET (OR ON HOW TO FIND THE INFINITE TUBE) In the Santa Barbara Mental Hospital Library, where doctors and patients share a rare communal space, each bringing their own world along, thus remaining quite –if not totally– oblivious to the others’, there are five aisles labeled from A to E. Each aisle is numerically divided into six sections from 1to 6, each of which corresponds to one shelf rack and genre, three on one side, three on the other. In turn, each section is divided from I to IV from the top shelf down to the bottom. Books are then orderly placed from number one onwards. In aisle D, section 5 (Fantastic Short Stories), shelf III between a rare English edition of Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Aleph” and an obscure Vedanta story by Swami Badrishiwatta you will find a book, a pamphlet really, nothing more than a few simply printed pages handcrafted into a booklet so fine in thickness that is not noticeable to the browsing eye but rather hidden in between the aforementioned books. It is not labeled by the librarian and I doubt she (they) even know of its existence. It should stay like this, and it should stay where it is. It is not to be borrowed for it doesn’t belong to the library, and it is not to be stolen for it doesn’t belong to anyone. The pamphlet in question holds one of the –I suspect many– links to the all encompassing eternity: the infinite tube 1


THE PAMPHLET - d. l. cash

I didn’t stumble upon it. As soon as I knew of its existence, I consciously and specifically made a break in my wave-exploration travels through the islands of Indonesia and went back to California to unlock the clues that would open the way to the object of my present and past obsession. It has been said that certain people, events, ideas, or material objects can become matter of obsession to the suitable mind –obsession to the point that one cannot think of anything else as to be deemed important or relevant to one’s existence. The object of our obsession supersedes anything and everything. Our lives depend on them. Not having known any, we live as one may live among blurry shadows of a petty and ordinary existence; when possessed by it, nothing and nobody, but the object itself, may satisfy us; when having known it and lost it, madness is the sole escape to our ailing souls, death its only cure. When in such a spell, we shut the world around us and the world shuts itself to us. They (them) may call us geniuses or they may call us madmen. We, for I (I am sure now) am one, are beyond their limited world. They don’t understand us and they won’t surely ever (I know) understand me. Not as long as their minds are kept in the time-space trap. Not as long as they don’t know for themselves what I know. I will leave it up to the reader to decide whether to dismiss my story as a madman’s reverie or to follow me on the path to eternity that hides open to all of us surfers. Even though I can’t really say when or where exactly I came to know about the infinite tube, I am certain I was in Bali, for the wave is in Bali (that much I know), and I am almost certain that it was during one of my first visits to the Island of the Gods. Maybe because of the uncountable years that have gone by, life sometimes seems like a broken puzzle of images, thoughts, feelings and experiences that were still here with me 2


nusa fiction surf stories

waiting to happen. Yet, it may all become so clear and vivid, that it takes just a speck of will to take me to that moment in which the reality of the existence of this exceptional, fantastic, extraordinary wave dawned on me, becoming, henceforth, my object of obsession. Bound to it, I set out on its search. The author of this pamphlet that hides on aisle D, section 5, shelf III, in the not so busy Santa Barbara Mental Hospital library, tells us that the wave is in Bali, somewhere on the south coast of the Bukit. The author refrains to give the exact coordinates, name landmarks, or provide any kind of definite and detailed spatial description, limiting his depiction to a rather vague portrayal of a common scene in the vast area of this coast of the Bukit. For in eternity (so he argues), there is no time or space frame, therefore, any kind of coordinates wouldn’t do the reader any good, but rather confuse him. Were he to specify a time and space frame –so he contends–, he would but disorient and discourage those who are not within it to take up the search. For my part, I have argued against it: The infinite tube (now I know it exists) is a link between the life of the senses, encased as it is in the time-space mind frame, and the intuitive, all pervading life beyond; it is a channel between two worlds, a tube connecting two different planes of existence, hence, it is connected and tied (loosely as it may) to the world of reefs, to the village underneath the high cliffs, to the stretch of white sand splattered with conch shells, and to the cone-shaped-hat-wearing Balinese sea-weed farmers. It is connected to the full moon, the midday sun, the wet clouds and the pushing tides. The author seems to sense this. He tells us that countless times he had surfed the wave before he was actually wrapped into the infinite tube ride. However, it is not really clear whether he was searching for it, as I 3


THE PAMPHLET - d. l. cash

did myself, or he just happened to lock himself in it by chance. I am inclined to believe it is a combination of the two. This is how I explain it: The author is a surfer of limited writing skills. (Indeed, his prose is forced and pedantic and almost intelligibly stilted –recherché, he would have used.) He frequently travels to Indonesia in the search for empty, perfectly lined up waves. I infer he likes long, hollow tube rides, and stubbornly and bitterly dislikes other wave riders’ company, preferring long sessions at unknown secret spots. During his trips to the archipelago he makes repeated stops in Bali where he surfs isolated waves in the south coast of the Bukit where waves have no name. Many times he had surfed the same spot by himself for hours –so he claims- before getting wrapped in the timeless tube. However, nowhere in this pamphlet does he mention a source of information that eventually clued him into its discovery. That puzzled me. Not long after reading his pamphlet I realized that no matter how many times you surfed that wave, chances were that you would never happen upon the infinite tube had you not any previous lead to it. If time is but an illusion created by man’s mind, then eternity and a single moment of existence are the same. Eternity could be experienced in a moment and a moment in eternity. If the tube is the link between the two planes of existence as the author maintains, it is then subject to not only time and space but also to the inherent law of causality. That single moment in time and point in space that connects and leads to eternity is bound to happen –so he tells us– at a specific time and place. Furthermore, he insists, the infinite tube will be closely tied to specific conditions and hence only caused by a certain swell direction, size and period, wave height, winds, and even reef formation and sand building at the bottom will be an essential part of the equation. The slightest unnoticeable-to-the-human-senses wind tinny4


nusa fiction surf stories

little-petty gust will create or destroy the necessary conditions for the infinite tube to happen. Moreover, dropping in the exact place of the wave at the exact moment should be crucial; even more so, following a precise line to position oneself inside the barrel at the precise instant is, really, what takes us into the infinite tube. If this is all true, it is quite improbable that the author could have come across the infinite tube without some sort of prior knowledge or lead. All said, however, I must concede that chance and randomness are the flip side of the causality coin; quite improbable means probable, and a lucky number is a lucky number. Once he was in and riding the infinite tube, he had –literally– all the time of the world to figure out the exact conditions of the spatial-time causality framework. I had to argue –still– a couple of points. The author of this wretched pamphlet (if only I could burn it!), I believe, wants to discourage surfers from going on the search for the infinite tube. He wants it all for himself and –I see now– doesn’t want to get out of it. It has become the object of his obsession and he can’t let go of it. He doesn’t want to share the bliss that awaits us in the infinite tube and beyond. Eternity, I agree, will be bound to the sensory plane of existence if it is to open a connection between the two worlds. I also agree the inflexion point will be precisely that: one moment at one point, for one moment is eternity and the infinite is contained in the smallest particle. But, why only one moment? If eternity is contained in one moment, then eternity is one and all moments. It will be argued then, that our minds fail us to see this, confined, as they are, in the space-time illusion. Hence the exceptionality of that inflexion point. But then again, if one particular spatial point at a precise moment, framed as it must in certain precise particular conditions, creates this link, other moments at the same spatial 5


THE PAMPHLET - d. l. cash

spot, during the same particular conditions, might also cause an opening into the world beyond. A perfect reef break might just be able to reproduce on those desired swell and wind conditions the exact same wave over and over again. Over and over again. With this lead and hope in mind, I set out to find the infinite tube. Incredibly, it wasn’t hard to find. And it seems to me like I am finding it still. It is a strange wave. You can see its strangeness looking at it from the beach. It is an extremely shallow, short (no more than thirty feet), tubular right that spats out onto a deep water shoulder. Its take off point is as gentle and easy as it is short in area. To the right, a close out left-hander drops –at the same time– all the water particles that delineate its lip along its hundred-foot long face, on the scarcely water-mantled reef, powerfully spitting its shattered energy. So you don’t want to paddle to the left too much. Paddle a bit too much to your right and the smooth take off zone will transform into a mutant lip that will send you mercilessly – and, worst of all, slowly– over the falls and onto the reef, crushing you as to make sure you go in and don´t come back. The take off zone then is only six-to-nine-feet wide. The drop is rather smooth and allows for a nice round bottom-turn –a must to give time for the wave to shape itself into that mutant thick-lipped wave, and for you to find yourself in the right position at the right angle to you pull into the tube. Observing the wave from the channel is an illusion-like, daunting experience. The seemingly easy wave at its take off and initial bottom turn, metamorphoses into a monster. Looking at it, you will see the wall quickly going vertical and then arching itself into the pushing ocean as if trying to resist as much as it can the ocean´s majestic power. The whole ocean rhythmically and smoothly cedes only to –with even greater 6


nusa fiction surf stories

might– spill itself over, as if folding reality´s plasma to finally breaking free of its boundaries at the end of the world. But, of course, it is not so. The end of the world is not there, just the end of the ocean. The wave throws the falling lip to the reef, and just when the lip is about to crash on it, the strangest thing happens. The author of this treacherous pamphlet is certainly right. The inflexion point is only one. I have had time to study it –have I indeed! The moment when the wave mutates and pushes inwards is the moment when it becomes a perfect semicircle, a moment later, the left hander spats out all that is inside her creating a fleeting vacuum in its womb . A moment later still, is when the falling ocean-lip about to crash on the reef, impelled by the vacuum force, defies gravity and veers towards the ocean closing a perfect –perfect!– circle of gleaming crystal-clear water, unlocking and unveiling reality and thus exposing illusion to its crudest to the surfer fortunate enough to be in and riding the infinite tube. The perfect-circle wave becomes the infinite tube. The infinite tube becomes reality. The illusion becomes the tube that links this reality to the real, allencompassing beyond. A moment later, had you missed the inflexion point, it’s the right-handers turn to spit you out onto the deep water shoulder. To get hanged in the infinite tube, you must be already in and riding it before the left hander hammers the flat reef spattering all its crushed energy. You must be in and riding before the right hander metamorphoses. You must be in and riding before the wave transmutes this reality –Maya– into the all pervading real. Watching a surfer get deeply barreled to the point of constantly – eternally– disappear and appear out of sight, as the millions of tiny little water drops engulf him from the back, is like watching a hologram of a 7


THE PAMPHLET - d. l. cash

surfer on a wave. Knowing –knowing!–, and only knowing his enlightened bliss in that one moment, that eternal one moment of allbinding harmonious solitude within the tube, compels you to share it with the world, with your fellow surf riders. For you know, the bliss is not total, if it is not to be shared. Your most selfish and territorial feelings give way to the joy experienced by sensing the ecstasy of the other that is but yours when in his (my, our?) place you sense the awe of the one looking at you from the channel and his joy at the thought of his turn to come. He knows the bliss and love that awaits him. We both scream at each self and each other. And I feel the bliss and the love. I am within, balancing myself in the delicate limbo between the mortal reef-hard reality of this world and the all-pervading bliss of the eternal world beyond. Appearing and disappearing through the maze of tiny little water drops. Like a hologram. The world, as I see it, outside the tube, flashes past before my eyes, framed by a circular water scythe shredding through the plasma. All moments passed and all moments to come become one and all. My vision is, however, limited to whatever was and is to be seen from within the infinite tube, that is, all that was and is to be seen from within the infinite tube while it broke, breaks, and will break. I see the impressive green-capped cliff, and I see it light-brown dry; I see the refreshing storms and the sun that shines on my face. I see the empty beach below the human-free cliff rising majestically towards the sky and I see then the humble shacks below it, I see the scattered minimalist villas above it, and now the blue, now grey, and now sky crimson reflected on the rows of the big hotels’ glass windows that line up above the cliff. I see the hotels taking shape from the ground and I see the builders deconstructing them back to the ground. I see the sky beyond bursting into volcanic flames 8


nusa fiction surf stories

and heavy clouds, and I see the blackish rain dripping on the water outside the infinite tube. All and each image harmoniously imposing itself one another at the same time. I see big chunks of cliff sluggishly crumbling down, crashing at the bottom to a cloud of dust and sand, and I see the same cloud of dust and sand pushing the same chunks of cliff back up into place up high, leaving no trace behind. I see the water like a mantle over the reef as it caresses the sand shore and I see it unveiling the same reef it’s covering. I see the fishermen standing on the reef, or the weed farmers hunched over it, or the beach combers slowly pacing and looking down on it as if searching for a long-kept, hidden secret. I see it desolated and I know that it partakes a secret. I see the surfer looking at me from the channel, screaming like a madman, his face lit with joy and dementia as he paddles passed and over the shoulder of the wave. I see the cliff appearing at dawn’s light, and I see it fading away at sunset’s shadows. I see now the Sun and then the Moon shinning unreachably on the smoothly curved wall of the shoulder of the wave in front of me and I see them sliding towards me and becoming a bright glowing strip on the blue that surrounds me, which is now light-green, or deep-grey, or flickering orange. I have all the time of the world and I don’t need to take it to get comfortable in the tube: I am already since the moment I locked myself in it, I have always been, I will always be. I see it all, have seen it all, and will see it all since and until that moment, the moment (always the same eternal moment) that I see the surfer from behind, being spat out from where I am, riding the infinite tube yet riding it out, into the abject reality of space and time. And I feel nothing but bliss and love as I smoothly, effortlessly, standing on my board, slide in the world beyond, looking at my brother surfer paddling in towards the shore without looking back. 9


THE PAMPHLET - d. l. cash

And how strange, a thought, a remain of a thought really, a whiff of a remain of a thought, not even, a word, or rather, a vague echo of a word faintly glints by somewhere in my mind: pamphlet. (A wretched one).

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