Yellow, Red, and Blue

Fifteen minutes until the next rotation. Four rotations until the end of the swim. Three more swims until the end of the day. Shouldn’t be too bad.  

Except that it is so hot. I can’t swim until the hour is up though. 

I move the umbrella so it’s covering more of me and scan the water. There’s hardly anyone to watch, I don’t know how more people aren’t coming to the pool. Only twenty people are swimming and the limit is seventy five. I guess people are scared of getting sick. 

It’s understandable, everything on the news is telling you to be careful. Wear masks. Wash your hands. Stay six feet apart. I’m so tired of hearing people say “new normal”. 

But I happen to like being a lifeguard so I’ll keep following the rules. Wear a face shield and gloves when cleaning. Sanitize everything when people leave. And don’t be rowdy when you’re swimming on your break. Well the last one isn’t as important but still matters. 

The radio repeats its slogan for the second time in ten minutes. 

“Easy 101.3, home of the no repeat work day.”

The next song starts playing, something about hearts on a cold street. Jack B sings along from his guard station across the pool. I move with the music, this song isn’t bad. 

A trickle of sweat runs down my face. 

In the guard tent Jack G puts his guard tube on and makes the trek to my station. When he arrives I clean the chair and wait for him to climb into it. 

“Thanks Hallie.”

“You’re welcome.”

The next guard station is my favourite. Rhiannon is waiting for me and starts her rotation when I reach it. I walk into the water in the beach area and bask in the wonderful feeling of being cool. Then it’s visor down and back to work. 

A baby in an inflatable boat smiles at me. I smile back and wave. A grandma is playing with a little girl underneath the blind snake that spews water from its mouth. I don’t know how kids aren’t freaked out by that thing. 

Someone asks about taking the swim test and I point them to Shelby. She and Laura are sitting in the water at the edge of the pool. As assistant guards they don’t have anything to do other than clean. 

The next rotation lands me on what my boss has endearingly titled “covid cop”. Basically I make sure people are staying distanced. It’s not hard, pretty much everyone listens. 

The swim only has twenty minutes left so I walk to the exit sign and open the gate. On the way back to the pool I see a blue jay feather on the ground. I pick it up and put it in my fanny pack with the small collection I’ve started. 

Five minutes later I’m at the bathroom station. Rhi tells me that someone is in there so I put gloves on right away. When the person leaves I take EW-150 in one hand and paper towel in the other and disinfect anything that they might have touched. 

I walk back through the narrow hallway and sit in front of the bathroom door. It’s so hot. I put sunscreen on but I can still feel my skin burning. 

Finally Rhi blows the whistle, I walk into the guard office to turn off the water features and everyone starts leaving. 

Now it’s time to clean everything. The tables, the railings, and the back gate. Make sure everyone is gone then close the gate and we’re finally free. 

I take my guard shirt and fanny pack off and then jump into the water. It buries me in coolness, the opposite of a blanket. I swim two widths under water and then climb out. 

We’re not allowed to spend too much time in the water, because our patrons won’t  happy that they can’t be in here. But it takes ten minutes for the disinfectant to work so we can’t let them in yet. 

I grab my towel and my lunch form the change rooms and then sit with the other guards under the tent. Some of them stay inside but there’s enough room for five of us under here while staying distanced. After all we have to be good examples. 

“How’s everyone doing today?” Nate asks. 

“Great!” I say, trying to be optimistic. 

He gives me a thumbs up and a grin. 

I pray and then start eating. My sister made my lunch today, an egg sandwich made grilled cheese style. It’s really good and I make a mental note to thank her again when I get home. 

“Okay, I have a question for you.” Jack B says. “Was the colour orange or the fruit orange named first?”

“Colour?” I ask. 

“Fruit.” Says Braydon. 

After everyone has thought about it long enough Jack says “The fruit was named first. People used to call orange red, so that’s why we’re called red heads.”

His hair is definitely not red, it’s more of a blond orange. 

“That makes a lot of sense.” Says Shelby. 

I scooch my chair more into the shade as the conversation drifts. 

“What would happen if a gorilla worked out?” Braydon says. 

I look at him strangely and Nate just laughs. 

“Think about it,” he continues “they’re already super dangerous, so if they got jacked they’d be unstoppable.” 

“Did you hear about that cocaine bear?” Jack B asks. 

“Yeah,” says Nate “who would win if a cocaine bear fought a jacked gorilla?” 

I roll my eyes and laugh. Sometimes we have the strangest talks. Other times we talk about some pretty deep stuff, like the time we talked about how small we really are in comparison to the universe. The conclusion to that conversation was that we should do as much as we can for the people around us. Help our corner of existence to better the whole world. 

Soon break is over and it’s time to go back to work. 

The next swim goes by uneventfully, the rest of the day becoming a blur until the fourth swim. 

Last station of the day is covid cop again. 

Almost everything is done already. There’s still about ten minutes left in the swim so I just wander around. 

“Excuse me,” a lady says as I pass her family “do you know how to show people to swim better?”

She has a German accent and is obviously Mennonite. 

“Yeah, the other part of my job is teaching swimming lessons.” I say. 

“Could you help my boys? I don’t know how to swim and I’m trying to teach them but I don’t know what they need.” She says. 

I smile “Sure.”

I kneel down as the oldest boy attempts front crawl. It’s sloppy and he doesn’t know how to breathe, but at least he’s not scared to put his face in. 

I show the lady how he needs to breathe and try to correct his stroke before the next boy tries. I do my best in the short amount of time I have and hope that it makes a difference. 

If these boys can swim better after today, then standing in the heat will have been worth it. Four of my friends have saved lives because of taking swimming lessons. So this might be my way of helping. 

Maybe it will rain tomorrow. 

Everything in this story actually happened. I changed names and mashed together some events, but I wanted to see what people would think of a story about my life.