He’s terrified of waves, which is a real shame because they’ve been in the news a lot lately… in recent years, that is. In 2004 the day after Christmas is spoiled when a tsunami hits southeast Asia, and while he doesn’t know anyone from that part of the world, he shakes in the shadows of his bedtime bedroom imagining an explosion of water that shears through tree trunks and scatters humans like kindling. He is grateful for his second story bedroom, but after Katrina, the next year, when hundreds of human bodies are found in attics and on roofs, he isn’t so certain. He knows that these people knew about the power of water; perhaps they did not respect it enough.
And then Japan, a nation that had wrestled with such things for centuries and knew the might and majesty and deadly terror of fast water. He saw actual footage, not so much the explosion of water as a rapid surge that rose and rose, higher and higher. He trembles through those night time shadows. He imagines running into the lake at a young age and hitting the sinkhole and the waves – small waves, timid and inoffensive waves – closing over his head with a non-negotiable finality. The nighttime shadows remind him of the waves. He lives in New Mexico now. But he is still afraid. Three-quarters of the world is water, and maybe that is greedy for the rest.