The Outaka wave

As a child I was abducted by a Guarani tribe in Northern Argentina. I was found in Paraguay five years later by a Swiss anthropologist. I went back to Buenos Aires but at the age of 19 I decided to accept the Swiss invitation and went to Lausanne to study anthropology myself. Instead, I was paraded in all the European universities as the new Victor of Aveyron even though I wasn’t from Aveyron. When on tour in the Basque country I realised the potential of surfing. I convinced the Swiss to pay for lessons and I started training day and night. Thanks to my various surf exploits (once I heard an Aussie saying “that cutback is rad dude!”) locals shared with me their most sacred secret: the Outaka wave. Under certain rare weather conditions experimented surfers could ride a wave all the way from Sopelana to Tulum, and they invited me to ride it that same day. I didn’t hesitate. I was tired of declaiming Guayaki poetry to boring academics so I waxed my board and started paddling out with the Basque surfers. The beginning was difficult but once we caught the Outaka it was as if my entire life was designed just for that moment: the wave and myself were One. This mystical experience got me distracted and soon I lost sight of my fellow surfers and, I could add, I lost sight of myself since I totally forgot what happened next. An old fisherman found me ashore on a beach in Cornwall and alerted the police. Apparently I claimed to be a Belgian pianist and even spoke some Flemish to prove it (I don’t speak Flemish!). By the time I recovered my memory I have told so many incongruent stories (a stranded Queen Mary cook, a Czech chimney sweep, an Austrian BASE jumper) that I was afraid of telling the true (an Argie abducted by Guaranis). I decided to lie and I started saying I was a technology consultant, and that’s how I got my current job.

1 comment

  1. Someone I met in okcupid asked me to explain why I lived in Lausanne and ended up working in London. This is what I wrote

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *