Jarid Manos is the author of Ghetto Plainsman [2010], the upcoming novel Her Blue Watered Streets, and The Sun and the Water, a collection of short stories. He has been published or featured in U.S. and international media. He is founder & CEO of Great Plains Restoration Council, and is a nationally-recognized published author, green leader, youth worker, vegan athlete, health advocate and public speaker.
Sometimes at night I’m sitting on the white silt bottom of the ocean some 50 or 60 feet deep, waaay deeper than I’ve ever gone; the blue water is dusky almost dark from the depth. My veins are racing; with my gut I tamp down a fear that could become feral. I can see nothing but the blue and black, and this beam or shaft of yellow sunlight impossibly penetrating all the way down yet lifting like the tail of a passing tornado. I can feel its force, its sidewall is pulling at me. I get caught — it pulls me up through the water to the glassy underbottom surface. And I always wake up before I hit. I imagine the surface shatters like glass, like water, and there is bright daylight…
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