poor freedom

Written by Cathoel Jorss, published 11 years ago

Queenslanders! If you want to feel good about everything, get yourself a European recently arrived from their winter and take him to the beach. Mine had never seen waves above hip-height before, but he charged into the surf like a snuffling dog. Every time I wiped the salt from my eyes there he was, plunging and lounging, spearing under curly-headed wavelets like a cormorant, trying to catch already broken arriving waves (“This one’s mine!”), surfacing with a massive smile across his face. I lay in the water, it’s been so long, and the line of buildings tilted on one end of the sea and the mountaintops tilted at the other. Plumped up Australians dragged their bellies and boards. When I was a child only ladies who’d had children were jiggly, and old men might have a beer belly: now it seems the whole nation’s jiggling, even muscular men in their 20s. Sugar, sugar. The water accepted us all. The ocean too is thicker and slower than it used to be and off the coast of California, apparently, carpeted with deceased sea creatures. But on the surface between the flags we were quite happy, one of us ecstatic. He plunged past me spluttering in sheer joy, legs flailing. “It’s… like…. pure freedom!” he shouted.