I won!

I had one day left to my visit in Los Angeles. I decided to rent a boat and go out on the ocean. I rented a Waterford X19. They are amazing speed boats. I got the boat up 112 miles per hour. Because the water and the sky were similar colors I felt like I was speeding through the sky on a jet.

The thing is I was having such a good time I didn’t notice the fuel gauge and I soon ran out of gas way out in the ocean. There were no other boats around me. I couldn’t see land. I didn’t have a radio or phone. So I panicked. Panic makes you do funny things. I tried yelling. Even while I was doing it I thought, “Dude, no one’s gonna hear you.” Then I tried leaning over the edge of the boat and paddling. In mid-stroke I saw a school of tuna swimming by underwater. One of the tuna looked up at me and rolled its eyes. Then I thought I saw a plane in the sky. I jumped up and down and waved my arms like crazy. It got closer and I saw it was a pelican. I started to cry.

Paddling, yelling, crying, jumping up and down and waving makes you tired very quickly. I gave up and sat down in the boat. Suddenly I realized how quiet it was. There was just the wind and the waves. It was like a meditation CD. I relaxed and fell asleep.

When I woke it was night. My boat was hugging the side of a huge yacht. I got up and walked onto the yacht. There was a party going on. It turns out it was a 200th birthday celebration for Edgar Allen Poe. A few people were dressed in raven costumes. Some were dressed like a heart. A woman was meowing in her black cat costume. A guy was wearing a shirt that said “My sister visited Amontillado and all she got me was this lousy shirt.”

People asked me who I was supposed to be. I told them my story about how I got stranded in the ocean and my feeble attempts to save myself. I ended up winning the prize for best story of the night.