She had no real reason to be out there—at least, none she would admit if anyone asked.
The jetty stretched like a stubborn finger into the sea, narrow and uneven, its stones still damp from the retreating tide. Most people walked it carefully, arms slightly out for balance, eyes down. But she wasn’t most people. Her brown cowboy boots tapped confidently against the rock as she crouched low, one foot forward on a weathered board she’d dragged from somewhere upshore. The yellow miniskirt fluttered wildly in the wind, bright as a warning flag, and her red top caught the sun like a dare. She looked less like someone about to fall into the ocean and more like someone who had already decided she wouldn’t. “Ready?” she whispered—not to anyone visible, but to the moment itself.
A gust of wind answered.
She pushed off.
The Waveboard – called Onewheel – rattled and slid over the uneven stones, and for a second it seemed like a terrible idea—boots slipping, balance tipping, the sea waiting on either side with its cold, patient certainty. But then something shifted. Her weight found its center. Her knees bent just enough. The chaos smoothed into motion. She was surfing. Not on water, not on waves—but on the thin line between control and surrender. The sea roared beside her, spraying salt into the air, and she laughed—loud, uncontained, the kind of laugh that didn’t ask permission. Each second stretched longer than it should have, as if time itself was curious to see how far she’d go.
Halfway down the jetty, she wobbled.
A sharp tilt. A near fall.
Her arms flung out, boots scraping hard against the board. Anyone watching would’ve held their breath.
But she didn’t fall.
Instead, she leaned into it—into the imbalance, into the risk—and the board corrected itself, shooting forward with renewed energy. She grinned, hair whipping across her face, eyes locked on the horizon where the sky met the sea in a hazy blur. That’s where she was headed. Not the end of the jetty, not the water below—but that line. That impossible, shifting line. And when she finally reached the last stones, where the jetty dissolved into nothing and the sea took over completely, she didn’t slow down. She jumped. Not into the water—but off the board, landing steady on the final rock, boots firm, heart racing. The board clattered into the sea behind her, claimed instantly by the waves.
She stood there for a moment, breathing hard, staring out at the endless blue.
Then she smiled—quietly this time. Because it had never been about the board, or the jetty, or even the sea. It was about proving, if only for a fleeting stretch of sunlit seconds, that she could ride the edge of something wild… and not be swallowed by it.
OK – perhaps the story might not quite fit, but it is and remains a story. 🙂
