So there I was, paddling around the beach near Driftwood, Oregon. I had on my water wings, my big blue plastic flippers and matching Hawaiian swimming trunks, and my goggles that pinched my nose shut so I wouldn’t get a snootful of the sea. It was a happy time.

But some un-environmentally minded person had left a broken beer bottle in the rocks where I was swimming. I cut my ankle right above my flipper and started to bleed. That was when I started hearing the low notes on the bottom string of a cello.

I turned around. Suddenly, and as sure as you read these words now, I’m face to face with a mouthful of six-inch daggers. A freaking Great White Shark had just broken the surface!

"Ye Gods!" I cried. I knew the Great White was carnivorous, but I thought it’s diet consisted of mainly fish (including rays, tuna, and smaller sharks), dolphins, porpoises, whale carcasses and pinnipeds such as seals, fur seals and sea lions and sometimes sea turtles. But I wasn’t taking any chances. As the great fell beast closed it’s jaws on me, I simultaneously kicked down in between its two rows of front lower teeth and grabbed it’s upper lip with my hands. The creature tried in vain to clamp down, but I forced it’s great mouth open again in a surge of raw adrenaline.

My foot brushed against one of it’s serrated lower teeth and the saw-like blade broke through the flipper and cut my foot deep, causing it to bleed even more profusely directly upon the shark’s tongue. This seemed to drive the beast mad with hunger. It’s nostrils dilated and it began shaking it’s head back and forth. I ducked my head as far into it’s mouth as I could and, sparing my right hand for a moment, grabbed onto its uvula and squeezed hoping to cause a gag reflex. It worked as I had planned, and the shark spewed forth the contents of it’s stomach, along with me, into the ocean.

I began swimming away from the shark in a panic, not realizing I was heading towards the open sea.

The shark regained its mind and picked up the scent of my blood trail. I felt for my swimming trunks and realized that they had been shredded when the shark threw me. I ripped them off and held on to the cloth. The shark was heading straight for me and in that moment an eerie calm settled over me. I refused to bob there in the ocean and let the shark take me. My goggles were covered in shark vomit, so I peeled them off my head. I would need to see as best I could.

I gritted my teeth and closed my hand into a fist and began swimming purposefully towards the hungry harbinger of my death.

The shark broke the surface of the water next to me. I splashed to the left and hit that son-of-a-bitch as hard as I could in the eyeball. The thing careened in pain. I took the shredded swimming trunks and threw them around the beast’s snout, covering its eyes. In this moment, I threw my leg over its head and mounted the shark, holding onto either end of the shredded trunks as a set of impromptu reins.

Blinded in one eye by my punch and the other by the trunks, the beast bucked wildly. I held it’s nose back, thus keeping it from submerging. It spun in an attempt to fling me and as soon as it was pointing in the direction of the coast, I kicked my foot down hard and dug my broken flipper into its back. The shark flew forward in an attempt to flee the attack, and yet I stabbed it. It was in this way that I drove the beast forward until it had reached top speed and flung itself onto the beach. As the shark came skidding to a halt, I flew off its back and towards a group of weekend beach-goers enjoying a hot dog roast.

Naked but for my water wings, and flippers, I picked my bruised body up and limped down the beach, leaving a trail of blood wherever my left foot touched the sand. My lungs heaved in an acute asthma attack from the exertion of the battle. The beach barbecuers were staring at me, slack-jawed and silent. I ambled to them and, without a word, grabbed their double-pronged barbecue fork from the grill and headed back to the shark.

I walked around it to look it in its good eye. I held the fork high above the beast’s head, and I could see in his eye he knew he was beaten. He closed his eye, sighed, and waited for the blow...

Which did not come. As my heaving chest settled and my heart beat began to slow, a great pity for the creature did come over me then. "You are but a dumb beast," said I. "And naught do you know of what you do."

Thusly did I go to the beast’s side and begin pushing it towards the water. My attempts were in vain; however, I was assisted by all who had bore witness to the great events of that day, and together did we push that Great White back into the salty lapping of the incoming surf.

The shark, once he found purchase in the water once more, wasted no time in making his retreat to the open waters. It may have been the seawater that I drank that day, or the heat or the exertion, but I swear to you the shark did turn back towards the beach, favoring its good eye. It met my gaze for several heartbeats, and with an almost imperceptible nod, it plunged back into the deep.

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