"TIDAL WAVE"

The original draft was written on a mechanical typewriter, single-spaced, with no right margin. All spellings, punctuation, capitalizations, strings of exclamation points, etc. are as in the original.

You have been warned.

It was high noon, but who cares. This was my first time on the beach in about two centuries, and already I had attained my first girlfriend! We were sitting by a set of coral-encrusted rocks, on a small, man-made protrusion. I was talking to her, and she was talking to me (exciting, isn't it?).

I don't know what it was; either I came about her too slowly, or attacked her too quickly, but she suddenly stood up, cursed at me, and turened to walk away at a maddened pace, never to see me again. I felt like dirt. And low-grade dirt, at that! I was even ready to kill myself.

Suddenly, the ocean several yards before me roared with a fury never thought possible. With this, a massive wave was created, at least 40 feet at the crest, would you believe it, 40 feet?!? Well ... uh ... would you believe ... 39 feet? No?!? Well, then, how about a week from tuesday! Nevertheless, it crased against the ground, and when it concurred, three people were dead. One of them was — "Her"! I don't know whether or not I was sad or happy (well, okay, I had the time of my life!), but she had bitten the big one, nevertheless.

Within seconds, another "rad wave" had formed, this one only, well, approximately 33.45637 feet tall at the crest (of course, that's only an approximation, I'm just guessing), but it was pretty damn powerful (excuse my vile language!). "Well", I thought to myself, "If that first wave could kill people, this one probably could kill me, too!" (I toldya I wanted to kill myself!). With this, I jumped into the path of the wave — oops! I spent so much time THINKING of dying, that I missed my wave!

Before I could do anything else, some nice cops glommed my arm, and dragged me off the scene (I told you they were nice — I never said they used force!!). I wanted to dive into the third wave (which was just forming), but those nice cops had me practically bound and gagged. When they noticed that the danger was over (and not until then), they released me (real nice cops, eh?).

As I was meandering about, wondering of a way to stab myself to death without feeling anything, I heard a head lifeguard talking with a distant ship (with a walkie-talkie, dummy! Whadaya think he did, yelled?!?). The conversation went as follows, what I could hear of it, that is." "A ship crashed? which ship? ... oh, the Ocean Mirage, eh? Say, wasn't that the ship with the cargo of ... it was! But, isn't Boraxium deadly explosive? ... It is! ... What? You say it's something more? I see ... It did THAT?!? Oh, so that's why ... A BIGGER one? You're kidding! ... You're not kidding! ... No, I won't go out with you tonight, Gertrude!!! Oh, well, I'll tell them. This is Base II, over & out..."

With this, he turned to the large crowd facing him and the massive Specific Ocean, and mate a startling announcement. "Folks, I'm afraid we're in for some pretty bad stuff (the plot sickens!). A cargo freighter carrying a large supply of Boraxium had a "little accident", and sank (like I said, a little accident!). As you may already know, Boraxium is deadly explosive...". A hush fell upon the crowd, which afterward began saying things like, "Oh, nooooo!", "We're all going to die!", and "Hey, man, who cares?!?".

The head dude (the guy who was blabbing first) interrupted them. "What you may not know is that there's now a second use for Boraxium: when the ship crashed (exploded, really), it created a rather large wave. It was obviously enhanced by the large spill of Boraxium crystals, for it began to grow to a tremendous height of fifty feet, and kept on growing!!! According to the effects of Boraxium, it won't curl and crash until it reaches land — our land! With a wave of that size (I'd estimate it would grow to almost 100 feet), it could devistate all of Santa Monica, and a good part of Los Angeles, as well. However, there is a way to stop it (the plot gets even sicker!!). You see, the Boraxium won't explode as long as it's in the water. And water freezes, right?"

The crowed yelled out, "RIGHT!!!", and the head dude continued. "So all we have to do is freeze the giant wave. Now, it won't be easy, but the only way to freeze a mass of water that large is to get freezing devices up off the ground, at least fifty feet. The only way to support and control these devices is with fifty-foot manned towers, at least ten of them, at certain intervals. Now, who wants to volunteer to build one?"

Being the big dummy that I am, I naturally volunteered. About two or three other people volunteered, as well. One of them was a surfing bum who never had more than "Sex and Drugs and Rock & Roll" on his mind. Another was an old lady who didn't know what she was doing, and didn't care, either. I don't remember, but I think there was another volunteer — an alien with ten arms — and even if he did volunteer, he quit 'cause the work was too tough — he said he was Construction began immediately, with me, the two other volunteers, and a whole lot of hired guns. Wood piled into the beach area faster than the average person could say, "Dsqnplbntz!". Nails flew through the air like a character from A.C. comics, and landed with a thud. It was no wonder that I became tired within a few days (It's kinda hard to work 72 hours straight through without sleep). Finally, the guy I was working with (that bombed stoner that hates Demented music), said, "Hey, man, I can't take this any more! I'm goin' home to my beach house, smokin' a few joints, and playin' Led Zeppelin at full blast!!".

I being of overworked-body and Discoed-out-mind, said, "No! You can't leave now! If only a few people left, Santa monica would be destroyed!!! You don't want that, do you?"

"Hey, mon, I don't ----in' care, so shut up, dude!". With that, he curled up a fist, and slugged me in my stomach. With that, he left, but I was still able to say, "You sadistic ... you ... you sadistic ...teen-ager, you!!!!!!!"

I couldn't stay on my feet any longer. I had to rest. Without warning, I collapsed to the ground, and fell fast asleep. Within the sleeping period, I had a dream.:

*I didn't really want ot include this as part of my story, but since Sean Hollingsworth wanted me to write a story including him, I might as well.*

I had gone to see a movie. My mother was there (although I wish she wasn't), and I was eating popcorn, drinking Dr. Pepper, and barfing intestines (not mine, somebody else's). I had come in during the middle of the movie. It was about a Mother, and her 2 childern (I didn't quite get the plot). I recognized one of the children instantly. Guess who it was? RIGHT! It was Sean (gee, how'd you guess that?)! His eyes were the weirdest thing, for each time he blinked, you could never be sure whether or not they would be normal blue-gray, or with stark-white irises (dreams are weird, aren't they?!?).

When I awoke, my tower was nearly completed, the cooling unit tested, and ready to install. I was too afraid to look down, as 50 feet is a long ways down. Nevertheless, the final beams (not laser or ray-gun, but wood!) were nailed (no, I don't mean iniolated or busted by cops or feds) into place, and the freezing unit was installed and wired up. At that moment, I thought I heard a faint but powerful rumbling noise. I put my ear to the ground, and listened intentively. Yes, a distant rumbling sound, but far from weak. I knew what it must have been. "I hear it!", I announced. With that, the guy nailing the beams in below me said, "Who cares?!?".

"What's the fuss about, guys?", the Head Dude asked.

"This guys says he hears 'it'".

"Hears WHAT?"

"The wave!", I replied, yelling down to HIM.

HE quickly donned his field glasses, and stared off into the ocean. Yes, it was most certainly coming — it would be there (here, and EVERYWHERE!!!) within the day. "It's coming closer", HE announced over the bullhorn. The people became slightly panic-stricken at first, anxious second, and determined third. The work was almost finished, yet they still needed to up their pace. I was more worried than anyone probably was — that wave caused too loud a rumble from that distance to be a mere 100 feet high. I knew we should have built these towers twice as high as they were. Oh, yeah — that's right! I almost forgot! I wanted to kill myself! I picked up a razor blade off the floor, then put it back down when I noticed it was unsanitized. I was going to die, but I wanted to at least go clean! At that moment, the wave became visible to me — without binoculars, even!!!! Everyone else could see it, too. The towers were deserted now, except for one man in each, controlling the freezing units. As the wave came closer, I counted each & every precious second, as they would probably be my last. If that wave even touched the ground before it was frozen completely, there would still be enough explosion power in the non-frozen matter to devastate most of this beach — Boraxium was a subset of dilithium, with about 20 times the power of nitro-glycerine.

The wave approached the beach at a "great" pace of some 35 miles per hour. The great body loomed above us — at least 200 feet tall. If I had known the wave would grow to this size, I never would have volunteered for this. At a command, each and every one of us turned on our freezing units, which took time to heat up (hey, I thought freeze ment cold!), about ten seconds worth. The wave reached ever closer. Soon, the sun was blocked from our view, and all we could see was water. The crest began to curl. Without warning, the wave hit the freezing devices, and began to freeze in a rage of sparks. The freezing wasn't over yet — yes, it quick-froze, but only in one general area; The freezing took time to spread. The curl was rapidly enclosing on the land, but the freezing moved a little faster. But would it be fast enough? Ther were only a few yards (ok, I'll be modern — a few meters!) between the wave and the land. But there were only a few feet (okay, OKAY! 253.475 centimeters!! Sheish!) between the freezing and the crest. Just as the crest was 6 feet or so above the ground, the freezing met up with it, and the wave stopped completely.

With that, the crowd cheered like they'd never cheered before — so I guess that this showed something (see #1, below). Suddenly, the bombed surfer I had mentioned before appeared, and stood under the wave and shouted, "We did it, we did it!!!". With that, I turned off my freezing unit, and a single drop of water hit his head. When it did, he exploded. I had finally changed my mind about killing myself — too unsanitary!!

MORALS:
  1) Your own life is more important than a Lakers' or Raiders' game.
  2) Never brag while standing under frozen explosive water.
  3) Don't commit suicide before thinking about it — you might regret your sanitariness later on in death (well, god, I couldn't say "Life"!!!!!!!)

• At the time this was written, I had yet to learn of the difference between a tidal wave and a tsunami.
• The word "glommed" was not my own invention; I got it from the pages of MAD Magazine, and it's apparently a very old word of Scottish origin.
• "Demented" music refers to the kind of music they played on the Doctor Demento show. You young whippersnappers probably don't remember Doctor Demento, but it was his show that gave Weird Al Yankovic his start.
• Note how I referred to metric units as "modern." At the time this story was written, America had not yet given up on its attempt to go metric. Today, though, about the only American metric success story is the 2-liter soda bottle.
• I lived in Santa Monica when this was written, which is right next to Los Angeles. Despite my mention of the Raiders in the "morals" at the end, the Raiders didn't actually move to Los Angeles until two years later. (The owner of the Oakland Raiders was trying to get his team moved to L.A. in 1980, but the rest of the League voted it down.)