Low Tide from Crystal Pier

Flat as a dish, the sand hard-packed and shining extends from shore to surf-edge, further and wider with each half-hour of retreating tide, until the bathers look like dolls bobbing about in the mounds and sheets of moving water. The lifeguard stares and squints into the sun, it is hard to tell a lump of kelp from a swimmer's head, and there in the black-tarred piling of the pier, many a small life might scream for help. How would it sound, here in this warm, concave afternoon, with the sea-air filled with the barking of dogs, shouting of children, squealing of girls, blare of a radio, and the long, continuous thunder of the sea? Would a single frightened cry pierce this complex haze of sun and running bodies, splashes and flapping towels, or would the lifeguard listen once and put it down for the querulous voice of a seagull passing by?