Wave Rider

One day, not so very long ago, a young nurse named Angela needed to use the laundromat. She loved to ride the waves after work, to let her surfboard carry her through cool water and salt air.  She loved to ride the back of the ocean, to feel the power swell beneath her feet, to let the water take her on adventures, to spy sparkling shells buried in the sand, to follow sharks and dolphins, to make the water sing with her. But all her suits were sodden with salt and sand, so she made the trek through sun blasted streets, trudging past wraiths curled up under the barred windows of smoke shops, avoiding the stares of  tattooed and bearded giants, finally pushing through the glass doors of the laundromat, bells tinkling behind her.  

The washers gleamed in friendly rows – though the largest one, the triple loader loomed alone in its corner, its round door dark and ominous. Angela avoided it, choosing instead a spritely little machine, a single loader.  

Two old women sat together watching their clothes spin through the rinse cycle. One chattered happily to the other who was wearing a sky-blue bathrobe with a pattern of shooting stars, but she ignored her friend, murmuring to herself instead.  

As she began her wash, the chatterbox turned to Angela. She was missing a tooth and had hair sprouting from her chin, but her eyes were bright and kind. 

“I’m Drusilla. My friend, Griselda, thinks something bad is coming here. Do you feel it? I don’t feel it.” 

“I don’t feel it,” Angela said.   

“Griselda is usually right. She uses herbs and sometimes runes. She has the power of sight. Not me. I just go with my gut. What about you?” 

“I like to surf.”  

“Oh,” said Drusilla, “so you’re one of those. Well, aren’t you the special one.” 

Before Angela could reply, a tall man pushed open the doors, bells silent behind him. He was broad-shouldered and blue-eyed, his blond hair precisely groomed – he wore khakis and loafers without socks.   

He surveyed the room, his cold blue eyes sweeping across the people waiting on benches, the spinning of clothes, the rush and roar of water pouring into and out of machines. His eyes swept over them, resting first on the triple loader which seemed to return his gaze and then on Griselda, her bathrobe, her grizzled hair, her restless mouth. He leaned casually against the wall, crossed his arms, and stared, the room belonging to him.   

“I don’t know,” Angela whispered, “Maybe I do feel like something bad is about to happen.” 

Drusilla whispered back, “He’s one, isn’t he. An evil one.” 

At the far end of the laundromat, a small door creaked open, and a tiny wrinkled man appeared. He carried a bucket and cleaning cloths and began to wipe out the machines. The blond man’s eyes swept across him, too. They swept across the glass doors as they were pushed open by a dark-haired woman carrying two heavy baskets. They swept after her as she placed one basket on the ground and loaded clothes into the washer from the other. They followed her out the door, bells tinkling behind her, as she rushed to her car for another load.   

A baby cried. 

“No, you cannot,” Griselda hissed at the blond man. 

Lazily the blond man straightened up, lazily the blond man swaggered over to Griselda. Lazily, he looked down on her. 

“You’re wrong. I can and I will.” 

But Griselda’s eyes were closed and her murmuring sounded like water rushing over stones or the surf retreating over seashells.  

The blond man swiveled his eyes to Angela and Drusilla. 

“They don’t belong here, you see. Immigrants. From those countries. They ruin everything for the rest of us. This is the only way they’ll learn. I don’t want to do this, but it’s my duty. It’s my duty to my brotherhood. I’ve sworn an oath, so I don’t have a choice, do I. I have to honor my oath to drive them away. To keep us pure and unpolluted.” And then he smiled, showing them his gleaming white teeth. 

He snatched the basket the woman had placed on the floor and inside it a baby cried. A baby with chubby rosy cheeks and curly black hair.   

And before Angela could think, like a thunderbolt he placed the basket with the baby in the triple loader and slammed the door shut. And then he was gone.  No bells tinkling in his wake.  

And because it was in Angela’s nature to save lives, she rushed to open the door, but even with all her strength she couldn’t, even with the strength of the desperate mother, the door wouldn’t budge.   

The caretaker placed gentle hands on their shoulders, “There’s nothing you can do. She’ll keep the water from rising,” he gestured at Griselda whose murmuring had intensified, “without the silver disc, there’s no way to open it.” 

Drusilla held the sobbing mother, the three of them helpless as the baby’s faint cries were heard through the round door. 

“What disc? What’s happening?” Angie had to find a way to help. 

The caretaker sighed. “That...person ...you saw, Preston Simmons, owns this place. He doesn’t need the money, it’s a like a game for him, he enjoys catching people, playing with them, terrifying them. It’s fun for him.  He set a trap in here – the triple loader. He uses it to scare people, sometimes worse. But he usually releases them with the disc, after they’re terrified and beg for mercy and promise to leave the country. But he became enraged last week, when no one here spoke English, and one girl laughed at him when he spoke to her, so he threw the disc in the ocean where no one can find it. Our only hope is Griselda, that she can find a way to break open the door.” 

Angela knelt down next to the mother whose hand was pressed against the door of the machine, the baby inside reaching for her.    

“We’ll find a way. We can take the machine apart. I’ll get tools.” 

“That doesn’t work,” the caretaker said. “He has powers, that man or whatever he is. I’ve tried everything. Everything breaks, my best electric drill. Nothing works, it’s all been tried before.” 

Drusilla straightened up, her eyes bright and shining as she regarded Angela. 

“I know something that will work - it’s you. Of course, you’re the special one. Go ride the waves. Go on, let your friendship with the ocean help us.  Go now. Don’t question it – just go.” 

Angela struggled to the beach – she felt she could hardly move; she could hardly lift her legs as she fought her way through the thickened air.  She felt the cold eyes of Preston Simmons everywhere, holding her back, his rage infecting the air, baking the sidewalks, pulling her down.  

She staggered through hot sand, so deep and hot, she felt she would be buried in it.  Someone’s surfboard lay ahead of her, thrown on the sand – she fell to her knees and crawled towards it. When her hands touched its edges, she felt some strength return and half dragged it to the surf. But the waves resisted, they pushed her down, they held her down, pounded out her air. She thought that she would never breathe again, betrayed even by the waves. The waves roiled into violence by the force of Preston’s rage. Pinned to the sand she saw sunlight beckon through the water and the waves, finally recognizing her, collapsed and retreated. Blue sky welcomed her, the water now contrite and calm. The board floated above her head, waiting patiently for her to paddle out, to ride the right wave to shore.  

She could feel the roll of the water approaching her, the powerful swell approaching.  The sun made a shining path over which three pelicans flew and then it was time.  

In apology, the water made a temple for her a shining blue cathedral she entered just under the crest of the wave. She rode through silence and blue light and absolute stillness. And as she emerged into sunlight and shallow water, a silver disc shone in the sand at her feet.  

Running past the eyes of wraiths and giants, water pouring off her shorts and tee shirt she slammed into the laundromat, bells tinkling behind her, and held the silver disc triumphantly aloft.  

The caretaker delicately passed it before the blackened, baleful door of the washer which with a guttural groan creaked reluctantly open. The mother flew to her baby who wrapped his chubby brown arms around her neck.  

Griselda stood up and took Angela’s hand in hers.  

“We have work to do,” she said. 

And Angela did do the work, saving lives across the world and riding waves wherever there was need of her.