The Longest Drive

Raising the bullhorn to my lips I called out through it as the surf washed around my ankles, “That’s far enough. You two over by the rocks you need to get back in and closer to the shore. There are dangerous undertows over there.” The two tourists I had directed my amplified voice at reacted with the typical surprise of someone being called out and quickly made away from the rocks. “Thank you.” I called out with satisfaction through the bullhorn. Letting the bullhorn fall down to brush against my thigh I ambled back along the beach to my lifeguard station. My summer job, as a lifeguard, wasn’t all that overly rewarding except for one thing. I got to be in a continuous relationship with the ocean. Ever since growing up as a girl in Cape Town, South Africa to now studying to be an oceanographer at a university exchange program here in Oregon I had loved anything to do with the water. My parents said that I had spent more time in the water than out of it and they might just be right on that one. I climbed up the steps to my lofty seat cast in shade by an umbrella and commenced to oversee the domain of Oregon beachfront that I was responsible for. Summer vacation had started a month back and I had wanted to go back to South Africa to visit, but one of the professors had asked for my help on a research project and so I had stayed behind. Right now though I wish I hadn’t. So much was going strangely these days and I had the innate desire to be with my friends and family as opposed to being by myself on these foreign shores of America. I had friends here, but to them I was just the slightly odd South African Christian girl with a funny accent. If it wasn’t my accent it seemed to be something about my refusal to join the party lifestyles of my fellow classmates that seemed to set me apart from the status quo of the current liberal times here in America. I wasn’t changing, however just to suit them, but I did feel very much alone and once more I regretted my decision to stay here for the summer. Speaking of being alone he was back. I leaned forward on my perch to study the silent individual who sat about a hundred feet further up the beach in his usual spot. This man was a complete enigma to me. He was always alone. I never saw him arrive, but suddenly he would be there sitting on the beach, staring out at the crashing waves as if wanting to be a part of the action, but apart from it as if bound by some invisible hand. He never went into the water, but he stared at it for hours. It was the only thing that kept his attention, except for one other thing, me. He stared at me. The way he stared at me was alarming, because I knew what he was thinking. He wanted me sexually and he did nothing to hide it, but gazed at me with a frank forthrightness that had caused me to come to silently fear just the sight of him. He was big in a way that was more than just being tall and muscular. He had an ingrained intensity and discipline about him that said he had the ability to seize a giant twice his size and break him in half over his knee. The degree of coldness about him was perhaps the most off-putting of all. He seemed devoid of emotion other than the urge I saw within him to be swimming in the ocean and to sexually have me. It had gotten to the point that I hated to even walk past him, because of the way his eyes seemed to stalk after me. I did not feel safe around him at all. Truly many men, mostly tourists, openly lusted for me in the course of my duties as I made my rounds along the beach. It was unavoidable as it seemed that most men anymore didn’t seem to have any manners and in general it was easy for me to pray for them and just move on and disregard their open lust for me, as well as their called out whistles and comments engineered to spark further communication, as if I existed as some sexy playmate for their desires simply because I was a lifeguard and too many of them had grown up watching Baywatch. Even as I disregarded them I couldn’t do the same for him. I felt threatened by him and it was with relief that he was always gone from the beach before my shift was over and I had to make my way to the often vacant parking lot where I had to then wait for a taxi to pick me up. There were no lights or security cameras and it was an unpleasant thing, as a young, attractive woman, to have to wait for the taxi to come. I’d asked to have the early shift, but my request had been declined and so I was tasked with closing the beach in the evening. Really, I should just quit and tell my professor good luck and go home until school started up again. The more I thought about it as I gazed at the man, who had become my silent nemesis, I realized the validity of what a good idea that was. Getting a couple of extra credits was not worth getting mugged, putting up with tourists, or of being stalked by a man that scared me. It was with surprise then that I realized something in regards to my uncomfortable feelings engineered by this man. With all the worry and angst he had put me through I had failed to do the one thing that I should’ve done first. I hadn’t taken it to God in prayer. Wasting no time I closed my eyes and prayed, “Dear God, I need Your help. This man scares me and I’m not supposed to give into fear, but I have and now I’m giving You my fears. Please help me and keep me safe and show me whether I should quit and go home or not. Also, the man, even though I feel he is my enemy, is not a happy one. I don’t know what he is struggling with, but I pray that You would help him and make a way by which, if he doesn’t already have a relationship with Your Son Jesus that he would soon find it. In Jesus Name I ask and pray these things.” I opened my eyes and looked around. Everything was the same, but I felt emboldened. It was time to make my rounds and I climbed down and began to make my way up the beach. Almost as if he had the benefit of sonar to aid him I witnessed my silent watcher turn his head from the ocean to view me. His look of forlorn wistfulness that he had given the ocean now turned into one of open hunger as his eyes ran over me possessively. Perhaps that was why his lust for me bothered me so much. Other men lusted for me, but his look said that I belonged to him, as if it was some foregone conclusion and that I had no choice in the matter. My old fears rose up sharply within me and I was on the verge of passing him by when I turned instead to approach him. His gaze took in my advance upon him with nothing but lustful interest, where other men having been caught might have looked away and acted as if they hadn’t been looking at me. Not him though. Coming to a stop in the hot sand I spoke out my thoughts, as best as I could state them, all the while feeling like a defenseless bunny in front of a devouring wolf, “Sir, I know this is a free country and so as you have broken no law there is nothing I can do to change a situation that I do not like. I do not like the way you look at me, but as a person with a God-given choice you have the right to look at me however you wish to, but I humbly ask that you would not look at me as you do. I’m sorry if my skimpy attire is a distraction for you and perhaps what would be best is for you to pick a different section of the beach for you to sit upon. If that’s not doable then I’m going to need to resign my position here and and and…….” Sounding ridiculous to even my own ears, I threw up my hands and stalked away down the beach and just like always I felt his lusting gaze follow after me. There was just no other way of getting around it, I needed to quit my job and go home. I nodded my head to that resolution as my blonde hair whipped about my face on a sudden landward breeze. With the breeze came a spoken word into my soul that had me come to a standstill in the sand, “Jolana?” Shaking inwardly and probably outwardly I whispered in reply, “Yes God?” “It’s too late to go home. Judgment upon this nation and the beginning of sorrows for many other nations within the world has begun, but you are set apart to Me and I’ve made a way by which your life will be spared, if you so wish it to be so.” Feeling tears streak down my face I asked in shock, “I can’t go home?” “Your home is in Me. I will keep you. Be patient child and you will see.” Nothing more came to me and wiping at my face I gazed around at the happy vacationers enjoying themselves in the sand and surf as if they didn’t have a care in the world. I on the other hand felt like screaming at the top of my lungs in hopes of waking them up to what I had just been alerted of in the spirit to by my God. Suddenly there was screaming and with alarm I looked up and out to sea. A surfer far out past the main traffic on the beach was floundering about and crying out unintelligibly. With focus I sprang into action as my training took over. I raced back to my station and grabbed the preserver board and tied it off before then running down the beach and plunging into the surf. I was a powerful swimmer, but he was far out and by the time I neared him I was out of breath and taxed physically. The situation I faced though immediately sent chills down my spine as instead of a cramped up wakeboarder I was presented with a man missing half his arm. Blood was gushing everywhere and the man was beside himself with terror. Careful to avoid his attempts to latch hold of me and likely drown us both I pulled the preserver board close to me and began to extend it outward to him when something huge brushed by me. The water foamed white before me and broke apart, as if a wave had suddenly erupted. The shark for that was what it was chomped into the preserver and ripped it from my hands before splitting through the water between me and the struggling man, who now screamed manically upon seeing the shark once more. I screamed too, as I was abruptly pulled through the water and then beneath it. In terror my eyes took in the fact that I was being pulled along by the shark because of the preserver’s line wrapped around my ankle. Thankfully, it pulled off my ankle and I backpedaled away from the underwater monster with my effort to rise to the surface and escape from it. In my one track thought of escaping one threat to my life I gave authorship to another, as my head came above the surface of the water and I bumped accidentally into the injured surfer. Almost instantly my head was plunged back downward beneath the water as the surfer latched onto me. I needed air, but the man was almost twice my size and aided by the adrenaline of fear in his effort to be free of the water he held me down. Struggling to rise up for air and break away from him I stopped in terror as my eyes took in the fast-moving object of toothed terror that was coming in fast at me from below! Oh God, I was going to die! None of what was happening this day made sense!