Surf on Sunday by Margaret Pearce

Surf on Sunday by Margaret Pearce

The crossroads waited, dreaming in the peace of the early Sunday morning, blinking stop-go commands to the empty air.

Suddenly, the heavy station wagon hurtled through the protesting red lights, to consummate itself in a destructive passion on the small panel van starting to cross with the green light.

They rolled and slid in an obscene embrace that rended and tore and crumpled, and then the absolute hush of shocked silence spread over the crossroads. From a long way off a siren shrieked its urgency as it approached, until its wail expired to a blessed silence.

Young Joe lay on his back staring at the sky. It was a bright blue with little fleecy clouds about the same white as the waves when they struck the first reef.

He remembered how the surf schooled itself to swell into translucent waves, marching well spaced across the sea to break white against the yellow sand.

About this time of morning, his mother put her roast in the oven and bustled around making apple pie. He closed his eyes. The sun had given him a headache.

He tried to roll his head into the shade. The tree at the edge of his vision was a flowering gum. He could just see the splotches of bright red through the haze. Funny, he thought, I don't remember it flowering any other year.

His thoughts returned to the beach. He should stir himself out of his lethargy and pack his board and wetsuit. The van with its 'P' plates tied on so bravely was his most cherished possession.

He lingered on memories of the last time he and his mates went surfing. All the long golden day, they swam and dived and fished. At dusk they collected driftwood and built a roaring fire to toast the remains of their sandwiches, discussing learnedly the best way of cooking the fish that had refused to be caught.

Joe grinned at the thought. His gentle, easy going mother teased them over their inability to catch fish. She supplied bait and fresh hooks every week and sent them on their way with mountains of sandwiches, but they never brought any fish home.

His head was aching properly now, and his legs stiff and sore as if they were sunburnt. He tried to move, a twinge of pain went through him and a firm hand on his shoulder held him still. He raised his head and managed a disbelieving look at the ambulance, the knot of bystanders, and the two cars, tangled together in a bridal shower of glass and fractured metal.

The blue of the sky deepened to a painful brightness as he fell back, and he shut his eyes against the glare. He was linked to consciousness and full memory of the accident along the lifeline of burnt rubber and spilt petrol, the smell evoking all over again the dreadful inevitable second of impact, and the cringing thought of his mother, dragged into the monstrous depths by the undertow of grief.

Pulsing through him, the faint murmur of the surf became louder as it called, fading out his tenuous link with reality. As he sank into the darkness he remembered. He was going surfing with his mates.

To ride the roaring waves of an unknown sea.

Launched on an unsuspecting commercial world, Margaret Pearce, ended up copywriting in an advertising department and took to writing instead of drink when raising children. Margaret completed an Arts Degree at Monash University as a mature age student, and has primary and teenage novels published as listed on Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle and writers-exchange.com