A Vestigial Interest

Luck only means something if you are ready for it. For me, it swept up on my surfboard before I even went through puberty. It came from a breaking wave.

There were still plenty of things I didn’t understand about her. I met her at a Del Mar pet store, but didn’t know how to react. I didn’t even know to be careful. We were watching a tank full of sea horses for sale.

“Every morning at this time they do a sort of dance,” she said, without taking her eyes off the tank. ”Their tails intertwine like a Barrel O’ Monkeys. Do you remember that game?“

I was tempted, but couldn’t make eye contact with her. My eyes were darting in and out of the coral and plastic seaweed shoots. In a dark recess of the tank I caught a reflection of her white teeth. The sound of the percolating bubbles was getting louder. If I had just turned a few degrees, she would have been right there in front of me.

Derek White has been trying unsuccessfully to get laid off from his job for quite some time now. He would rather be writing like the rest of us. He has a few chapbooks available from Calamari Press and is the sous chef of SleepingFish.net.