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vanguard of free-divers called wet equalization. Before a dive he fills his head with water, snorting scary amounts through his nose, driving it deep into his sinuses and Eustachian tubes. (The epiglottis, the flap of tissue at the back of our tongues, keeps the water out of his lungs.) On either side of his eardrums, water sits in a kind of static harmony. It is both inside and outside the door, a perfect balance. With it, Nitsch is able to dive as deeply as he wants. So long as there is water inside his head, he can dive forever.
    Problem is, filling his head with water makes Nitsch feel as though he is dying. "It is very unpleasant," he says with typical understatement. The feeling is all that stands in his way, all that separates him from the only thing he's ever wanted. He's so close. But it's hard to evolve so quickly. Even Nitsch can't suddenly ignore the feeling he's drowning, that he is about to die.
    You would feel the same way, as the water trickles out of your sinuses and down the back of your throat. You would feel it collecting in your stomach and running like a river into your intestines, first small, then large. Some might even slip past your epiglottis and rattle around in your lungs. You would taste the salt, choke on the bubbles, feel the weight dragging you down. You would feel the water making its inevitable way down every corridor of your body, into every chamber as you sink not like a stone, but like a foundering ship, picking up speed the deeper you went. You would feel your one-way valves and muscles struggling to fight the incoming tide. You would feel blood rushing into your pounding heart and convulsing lungs.
    Nitsch might be wrong, but he thinks he knows what comes next. He's done the math, taken the measurements. He knows that, eventually, his body, your body, will stop fighting. Eventually, it will give in. Your brain will accept its fate and shut you down piece-by-inessential-piece, segment-by-unnecessary-segment. It will decide there is nowhere to go but down, that life on the surface is over and a new one awaits below. You will begin to adapt, feel yourself transform. Only then will you find a new serenity, euphoria even, your body no longer itself but something else, some new, mysterious vessel you never imagined you were capable of being. You will become a submersible, a torpedo, a seal with a giant, enviable spleen. And you will feel one with the water, as though you could dive forever, thousands and thousands of feet, where black becomes blue again, and where every one of your dreams comes true.

The Surfing Savant
Paul Solotaroff
FROM ROLLING STONE
    P UT HIM IN THE WATER and Clay Marzo is magic, a kid with so much grace and daring that you laugh in disbelief to watch him surf. Every day he's out there in the South Pacific, shredding huge swells till he's faint with hunger and near the verge of dehydration. He doesn't really ride waves as much as
fly
them, soaring above the sea foam upside down and spinning the nose of his board in whiplash twists. Just two years out of high school, Marzo is remaking a sport held hostage by rules and hack judges, turning it into a cross between aquatic parkour and X Games stunt work. Call it what you want, it's a sight to behold.
Sorry, but humans can't do that,
you keep thinking. Then he goes and does it all morning long.
    But if you sit and list the things that Marzo has trouble doing, they quickly outrun the things he finds easy. He's unable, for instance, to eat a simple meal without much of it ending up on his shirt or the floor. Out of water, he has trouble interacting with other people, either staring in bafflement at their grins and jokes or avoiding casual contact altogether. He blurts things out, chants rap songs to himself, and pulls out clumps of his hair when anxious. When he speaks, which isn't often, he seems younger than his 20 years, mumbling like a bashful eighth-grader. For years, the rap on Marzo has been that, for all his talents,