A Beach Bum, in Paradise (Story Completed!)

How would you describe your perfect day?

For me it’s a clear sky, white sands, and blue waters.

I had all those things on my perfect day. All three stretched on forever towards the horizon, and I was hoping my precious moments among them would as well. It was just me, my board, and the waves. There were worse uses for eternity, right?

I was taking it easy breezy on the beach after a long morning of surfing. My muscles were buzzing, and my shaggy blonde hair was crazy gross with sea salt, and sand. I was kind of just laying on the shore letting the water hit my feet, and do it’s best to drab me back into the ocean. As if the waves needed any help.

Days like these don’t come easy, so I felt pretty grateful to be getting one. I’d worked my butt off for it… Haha just kidding. I hadn't worked a day in months, and these lazy afternoons came as easily as breathing.

The good life I was living was just one of the flukes of the universe, but I was happy it happened to me. I was pretty sure it was all thanks to the good vibes I’d been putting out into the world. “Yeah, that must be it.” I muttered dreamily as I stared off into the sky. I’d been thinking of how perfect the day was at the time too. It's good to know that I recognized a good thing when I had it. In the coming days when life got cartoonishly worse, at least I knew I wasn't a ingrate.

At that moment in time there couldn't have been another human being closer to Nirvana than me. I really felt like I was making progress on some of the mysteries of the cosmos, the big questions, like; ‘Why?’ and ‘Who?’.

I may have done a small amount of weed too, but if anything that was helping me.

This cosmic clarity was a fragile thing though, and only lasted up until the point where my stomach groaned hungrily. Then all my progress was lost, and I was really only concerned with one question ‘When?’ The Buddha had starved himself for quite a while before he redeemed the universe, so if that's what I had to do to reach celestial insight, I was gonna eat a pizza.

I tapped my waterproof apple watch, and checked the time, 1:00PM, time for lunch. Nice. I loved my watch. It told the time, took calls, could check my stocks, and most importantly instantly made me look like a douchebag whenever I puled it out in line at the grocery store. Make fun of me all you want, but the reefs surrounding the island were 50% Coral, and 50% Phone’s I’d forgotten to take out of my trunks.

I’m not a smart man.

But I was hungry, and that was reason enough for me to break my micro-nirvana and head back home. So I secured my board underneath my armpit, kissed the cove goodbye, and made my way up the hill that hid my little slice of paradise from the rest of the town.

I know starting a story off with a guy peacefully laying on a beach is kind of boring, and maybe even a little tropey, but this whole thing really did happen that way. Plus if I started my story off already enslaved by the secret society of underwater scuba-lesbians you’d be missing a lot of context.

But now you know just how happy I was that afternoon, maybe you’ll be a little more sympathetic towards me when you see life take a total dookie on my island.

The side of the hill gave way after a little hiking to the best view of Serenity Island you could find. As the highest point in sight, you could see everything, the town, the harbor, and miles and miles of blue. Of course on my perfect day that endless horizon was broken up by a warship parked just off the coast, and that cozy little island town was going up in smoke!

There were tinier boats going from the mother ship to the shore, and blockading the harbor. Helicopters circled overhead like a border collie herding sheep. I could see lines of people moving through the streets like ants on march.

Ah man, we were being invaded!

I buried my head in my hands and groaned miserably. "Total bummer."