It was the hottest summer in the history of the world, and I was in one of the hottest places: Satan's Uvula, the world's most extreme bio-surfing slope, built in the Gobi desert by mysterious billionaire and bio-surfing enthusiast Zepf Zarkham.
My bio-board, Cynthia, was riding in the freight elevator next to us with the other boards. I first noticed Magnum Flex's Warhead, an ox. Skip “Sizzle” Sherpin, a low-rider from Cali, had a brand new salt water crocodile he was calling Greenwake. Wicked Sick, a galapagos tortoise, belonged to Ollie Macomb, longtime respected bio-surfer pro. Macomb was unbeatable in his prime and though, at thirty-six, he was long in the tooth, yet you couldn't build a slope like this and not invite him; and to do so would be an insult to b-surfers everywhere. I'd been worried that the old dude would take a bad spill and kick the bucket for years now, but he always managed to come out alive, if not on top.
It's Almost Like a Vacuum
t was snowing. The river had become frozen stiff, with each stick, stump or bush protruding like a rib through skin. On the west side lay a barn, dark and gray, where two men, maybe in their mid-fifties, stood bundled in thick coats of wool and anchored by sturdy boots capped with steel. From a distance, one man appeared a limbless figure next to the gray wood. ...READ MORE
