R.I.P.Tide

By Pamela Love

The Main Event: Me versus Sea.

A fight to the finish—probably mine. My opponent is the ocean.

Water’s a liquid? Tell the riptide that. Solid as a giant’s fist, it hauls me farther out every second. To defeat me, the riptide doesn’t drag me under. It doesn’t have to. My straining muscles already ache. I can’t keep my head above water forever.

But I can swim for my life. Grandpa taught me when I was a kid. He educated me about safety, too. “Listen, Ella—you need to read and memorize the signs of a riptide. That way you’ll know how to tell before you go in that a current might yank you out to sea.”

Guess I should’ve looked both waves, Grandpa.

If he were here, he would tell me to fight—and remind me how. I learned that, too. No human can outswim a riptide. You’ve got to outsmart it.

Clawing at the current, I fight to turn sideways. Riptides aren’t that wide. If I can find the strength, if I can break through the current’s edge, if I can swim out, I can escape this monster.

If…

But the rush of the riptide walls me off from the waves. This isn’t the pool at the Y, and my strokes aren’t strong enough to break its grip.

If you can’t free yourself, Plan B is getting a lifeguard. “Help! Heeeeeeeelp!” Does anyone hear my screams? See my frantic face?

Plan B… B must be for back, back, back as the current carries me farther away from the beach. I can barely see the lifeguard’s stand from where I am. Which means that every second I’m getting harder to hear. Harder to see. Harder to save. “Help! Somebody! Anybody—oof!”

Something slams into my side, nearly knocking my breath away.

“Grab it!” a lifeguard orders. Finally, an ally in my war against the water. Like a drill sergeant, he barks orders as I wrap my arms around the body board. “Hang on!” I’m swung around that ninety degrees I needed. “Now kick!”

Hope gives me power. Together, my rescuer and I surge through the water, all the froth around us making me think of a bubble bath gone very wrong.

And then we’re bobbing in gentle waves. Normal sea equals normalcy.

“Thanks.” Do I sound as weak as I feel?

“Keep holding on,” he says.

I am in no mood to argue as he tows me to shore.

Finally, sand squishes under my feet. I’m exhausted, but I refuse to lie down at the sea’s edge. That’s where the current grabbed me before.

So despite how my legs shake, I stay on my feet and head toward drier land. Saltwater rolls down my face. Most of it’s too cold to be tears. “Thanks,” I repeat.

“You okay?” my rescuer asks. He shifts his board to his other arm and offers me his hand. I take it.

I’m getting a better look at him now. He still reminds me of a soldier, maybe a veteran—around thirty, with a buzz cut. Even his trunks are camo green… Wait, not lifeguard red. “Hey, you’re not the lifeguard!”

He smiles. “Actually, I am. I’m just off shift. When I got your SOS, I grabbed my body board and got moving.”

“I’m surprised you noticed me way out there.”

He shrugs. “Well, this will sound weird, but to be honest, I didn’t notice you. I was reading.”

“I don’t understand. How did you know I was in trouble?”

Dropping the body board next to a striped umbrella, he picks up a paperback from his beach towel. “Check out page 150.” Among the printed words about a spaceship battle are tiny, raised dots. “When I was reading, the dots just popped up. It says—”

“‘Girl caught in riptide. Go save her!’” My wrinkled fingertip can barely feel them, but I still recognize the familiar patterns. “You’re sighted and read Braille, too?”

“Yeah. I learned because my sister’s blind.”

I whisper, “So was my grandpa.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After graduating from Bucknell University, Pamela Love worked as a teacher and in marketing before turning to writing. Her science fiction and fantasy stories have appeared in Cricket, Beyond Centauri, and Spaceports & Spidersilk, among other magazines. Her fantasy novel, The Pegasus Potential, is available on Amazon and Smashwords. She is also working on a new fantasy novel.

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