Summer Of Rebirth

We did not know it at first, but since the pool opened, money had been falling out of a certain persons swim shorts. We had noticed by miracle that money materialized near the drain. This happened, oddly, everyday.

I was new to this pool so I was unaware of the situation at first. I was not positioned at my refurbished general pool since the incident that closed it.

The lifeguard fund was created for the reason. We would generally find $1 or $5 bill daily at the bottom of the pool. At the close of the pool, we'd send someone to gather the money and add to the fund.

The lifeguard fund was a general fund that supported the lifeguards. Lunches and pop were usually bought from it, as well as the occasional ice cream man stop.

I, though, get bored on the stand, and begun thinking of other ways to spend the collected money. I thought finally that we could make a trip up state to the big amusement park at the end of the summer, saving enough money for us all. Everyone liked this idea.

My boyfriend was back home in Alaska. He took his sister home after last season's ending fire, and has only returned on a few visits here and there. I have not been able to visit him because I could not afford it; he always visited me.

It was him who suggested I start diving for the gold myself. I go save that money up, not turning it all in, and visit him for once. He also suggested me to be on the lookout, not only because I was finding money for myself, but so maybe I could figure out who it was leaving it and get to the bottom early. Though he's visited, I still feel lonely. We've had to resort to phone calls, which become rather expensive being long distance.

Every time I was on the deep end stand I was paying attention, trying to see money fall out of pockets. This task is really not as easy as I had hoped. People tend to splash; water is cloudy; it is just plain hard. Since the deep end was the final stop in the lifeguard rotation, I decided to dive in to "cool off." Nothing was there.

I was hot and wet and now dripping from the enjoyment I just acquired. I got my towel out to dry off but rather elated from my wettening, I just carried it with me. Before I knew it, I was on the stand again, still wet, and still with my towel.

The towel quickly became a cape as the heat beat down on my back. These resent summer afternoons have been cloudless and extremely hot. Even with umbrella's hanging overhead, there is not much to stop the beating sun from pummeling our backs. The only things to stop that are wearing a shirt, or towel, or jump in. Shirts are out of the question, and jumping in isn't allowed. And every now and then, if I were lucky, a nice kid would swim by and get my cape wet.

Jumping in, however, is not allowed until we are on break. When my break came back around, I tried for the money again. Straight off the guard stand I dove towards the water, but money is not what I saw.

As I reached closer and closer to the bottom, it became more and more apparent that my cape was sitting on top of the drain. How could that be? I thought. I swam to grab a hold of it, but it seemed to keep moving further and further away. Either that or I was just floating away. Being that my legs never stopped kicking, I was fairly sure that was not it, but still....

Not reaching the bottom, I pulled my way back to the top. As my head broke the barrier I took a huge gasp of air. I felt like I had lost all of my air and had been under for too long. And my towel was still on my back. What the heck was that?

"Maybe it was a reflection," said TJ after I explained it to him, "Or a mirage, like in the desert. You did say it was real hot."

"A mirage? Seriously, come on. In the water? I don't think so."

"Well excuse me then. I was trying to..."

"But a mirage? I think that maybe I was just tired. Yeah. I was tired, that is why I never reached the bottom. And seeing the towel, well, maybe it just got in front of me. Or at least it looked like mine, with the faces and all..." I began to ponder. "Anyways, we should not stay up as late anymore, at least, let me get some rest."

I went to bed early that night. I was perplexed to say the least, but I had been tired and still was thinking that that was what it was.

At the pool the next day I felt refreshed. That's not entirely true, I faked it. I was scared. I barely slept at all. I told a few of the other guards and they all thought that the sun was just getting to me. I got to run the register and stay inside. I was happy.

While at register I noticed a few people coming in with a lot of money. A lot really more being multiple dollar bills – like in a big wad. But that got me thinking that one of these people must be the person losing money in the pool. I recognized most of them. Since I had the time to sit and stare at the pool while people were not showing up to pay, I watched for a couple of them to go off of the diving boards. Once I got someone to fill in, I took a break and dove in myself. Low and behold, $5 was slowly dangling its way to the drain.

When I got back to the register, the other guard asked where I was. "I dived again."

"Dove," said the manager coming up behind me.

"I dove again. Whatever. Dived, dove, either way I found money to add to the fund."

One of the two kids I was watching left the money. There was not any easy way to be sure which, not without watching both, but when one of them came to me for change, I have a thought. I would make the change, but see if I would find the same money later on.

At the end of the day my marked money showed back up. It was a good day. I had no weird images like yesterday.

That night was a short phone call again with TJ. I tried telling him my good news but he would not listen. He kept bothering me about watching other guys and not trying to spend time with him. I tried to explain but he was dead set. I hung up. I really did not like him bursting my bubble, but it was not popped.

The next day I was in rotation again. The other guards told me to make sure I had my cape on as to not get too overly hot. About thirty minutes after we opened I saw the same kid again. I was guarding the deep in and he was going off the diving board.

I took a moment to sit and think. I was about to become one rich girl. I could literally see the money wafting to the bottom. Rich. When my break came, I dove, cape and all, straight for it, sliding through the water swiftly. But when I touched the money I saw something, someone, over to the side. It would normally not have bothered me, but it looked grimly familiar. At that point I began screaming. It was someone I knew, or at least someone I think I used to know. I could not remember. He was lying on the bottom and looking up at me. And that was enough to scare me straight out of the water, but it didn't. No, I turned to scurry my scared butt back to the air but instead of going up, I went further under. I think I forgot how to swim or was going the wrong way until I felt a hand on my shoulder. I saw a white kind of glowing hand bringing further away from the living side then back up. I closed my eyes as I broke the water's surface and then it was gone. Everything was, except for the $1 bill I firmly grasped, and the air.

I got out of the pool crying. I was frightened, not because I was seeing images of dead people at the bottom of the pool and weird white hands drowning me. No, I was frightened because something was wrong with my head, and I have never had that problem before. It was too early in the day for this and it was not even all that hot. I went straight to the cash register and traded the wet dollar for a dry one. I needed a drink desperately, a cold, hard, carbonated one.

I was hysterical when I got out, or so they told me. I was unable to work so they sent me home. I called TJ immediately, but he did not answer. He never answers. When he did call me back an hour later, I was still shaken.

"What's wrong now?" He asked first thing.

"It happened again."

"What did?"

"I saw something. In the pool. It wasn't pretty. This one bothers me."

"Why? What was it?"

"A dead person, just sitting at the bottom. But no one was there. They checked. They emptied everyone out, said it was a drill, and no one was down there. All of this horror and just for me to find one dollar. I can't keep going on like this. I can't keep breaking like this. I-"

"You just need rest. You just-"

"Don't tell me how I fell, you have no idea. I got plenty of rest. I don't think you have any idea what it's like to see a dead person just sitting there. And there not be anything there. Real or not this really scared the crap out of me."

"I have. You forgot my dad-"

"Well this is worse. Now I'm seeing things that do not exist. And feeling things. Something touched me. A hand. It reached down and I felt like it was pushing me further. But it wasn't. It was pulling me back."

"Well I'm sorry. What do you want me to do, kiss it and make it better? I can't. I'm too far away. You are SuperShelly. Get over it!"

"I don't know what to do. I can't tell what's real and what's not. I came home and don't know how or what I've done. I'm getting my thoughts in my head confused. Where am I?"

"You're at home. That is where I called you."

"I'm anywhere but home. I feel like I am still drowning at the bottom of the pool."

"Well, I'm sorry. I guess you will just have to toughen up a little; you still have a lot of money to find to make a trip here."

"I'm not getting in that pool again."

"You have to. Maybe you can make friends with it."

"I wanted to talk to you, not have you fight me and scream at me. I feel you are tormenting me daily, because I can't see you, and you talk, well, like this more recently. And I still call."

"What are you saying?"

"The person I saw at the bottom, looked like you a little."

"I'm still here; I'm not dead."

"No, you're not still here. You are there. I am here, wherever here is. I'm by myself out here."

"I'm still with you. I'm still-"

"No you're not. You've been fighting me, making me pull 'us' through the relationship grinder, and still keep the glue for us together. You don't care enough to come often just to be around me or help me come there. With all the money I might find I still wouldn't be able to afford it. I'm not going to let you dictate how my life is run. You can either choose to change your ways for us or change them for you, but you need to choose. I will not continue on like this letting you bring me down with you. I can't do it anymore. I can't keep 'us' together if I can't stay together myself." Just then my phone died. The irony is he never called back, at least not that I know of. The next morning, after it had charged, there were no messages that he had.

I drove to work still shaken and bothered from the day before. Things just aren't going right and I was on a downward spiral to chaos. I've been trying to get other people to give some notion of help for me, but I realize now I am on my own and have been. Just me and my delusional mind.

I went to work because I had to, not because I wanted to. Everyone knew I was not having a good week. Yet safety comes first. I'm supposed to be the adult, or at least the elder to the children swimming, and their safety is coming before mine. My safety was less severe than theirs was and since I was the 'adult' I had to check myself at the door. So I ignored it all, or at least tried.

I went the whole hot and sweaty day without once getting in the water. The kid whose money we were after (finders keepers..) did not show up and I needed to make no rescues. It was a nice and ghost free day.

I decided at that point that whatever was happening was trying to inconvenience me and only did so at times that would not interfere with anything. It would scare me to the point where I could do no more. It did so very easily too. But nothing happened. Maybe I was just so scared from the last apparition, or that I was expecting it, but nothing happened nevertheless. I had peace.

I had peace at home too. TJ never called me back. This was the first night in a long time that I did not talk to him. We usually tried to make time at some point to talk, but not on this night. I began to miss it, and went to bed crying.

I slept very little. This was becoming a routine for me. Even without him calling me he had a grasp over me. I did not wake up until after I arrived at the pool. I cared not to set anything up nor help with the swim lessons everyone else was supposed to do. For some reason I had forgotten the kid had shown up the day before and no one checked for money in the pool. I don't know why I did, but when I did, I met my apparition there.

It was at that point I awoke out of my grogginess. I had the same sinking feeling I always did. I saw my cape again but this time it was not alone. The drowning man I saw had it. I tried to feel around me for my cape but I did not find it. I thought I put it on. It must have fallen off. IU moved myself to take it from the 'ghost' only to have it climb to the top of me as if to save itself from drowning. It kept pushing me down until eventually it was out of the pool. Then the white hand appeared, reaching in for me. I felt it reach my shoulder as it did the last time but I pushed it away. 'I don't want your hand this time, I will save myself,' I thought to it.

As tired and wore out as I suddenly became, I pushed and pulled myself up. Standing waste deep in the water, I stood face to glowing whiteness.

I was bewildered about the surrounding happenings. How was all of this possible? I stared in the back of the black holes where the eyes should be. The further back I looked, the more I saw myself there. In the back I saw a little girl trying to win. I saw an older, walking, and carrying lunch in a swimsuit. I saw myself giving CPR, only to myself. It had been two years since I had to actually perform CPR, and it wasn't on myself. I was confused as I felt it was trying to tell me something. The message I got from it was that I don't remember it, not as it seems to remember me.

Out of the water it held my towel, now dry, and handed it to me. I wrapped the towel around my shoulders to keep it out of the water, but I know not why. Then from around my neck it produced the chain I found in the fire. It placed the chain in it's opposite hand and slowly retracting it out of the water, it brought out a shinny new chain. Taking off the end pieces, it fastened the chain around my wrist. Then it became clear.

As it unwrapped the towel from my neck and tied it on my back. Then it turned me sideways and slowly brought me underwater. I suddenly felt exhumed by heat, and when I came up, it was gone. I stood alone in the shallowness of the water, with the cape and chain on me. Everything was crystal clear; I remembered everything.

The funny thing is I did not see the kid with the money appear back at the pool, but he could have just looked different. Different hair, swimsuit. But money was not found as frequent either. But I did not care. I felt free; I wasn't being held down anymore. A huge burden had been finally lifted. I won't be broken again, TJ wouldn't understand, not until he is ready; even I wasn't ready. It's time I begin taking over myself and, as TJ once mentioned, not let the little things keep bringing me down.