The ocean was crystalline turquoise, and it would breathe in and then collapse on the sand in small, innocuous waves like the contented snores of a baby. Children splashed in the shallows, and older kids and adults languished in the lazy sway of gentle water.

Much further out, it was impossible to see where the horizon met with the sky. Everything was as still and flat as a pane of glass.

The only present danger was the unperceived and ever present risk of melanoma or sunstroke, and they were on the decline thanks to shock advertising. Flash a few pictures of advanced skin cancers or some puckered scars where someone’s flesh has been scooped like a melon, and very quickly, people start to listen. Vanity wins out in the end.

Gunther Muntz slathered himself in a high protection sunscreen that also promised on the bottle to "facilitate the tanning process." He bought it before he left Germany, and he relished the way the young lady at the chemist had said that she was so envious that he was spending a bone chilling Hanover winter as a glorious Australian summer.

“Ven I return,” he told her with a wink, “I vill bring the sun vith me. If I veturn.” He remembered her giggling at that, and at the time, Gunther already felt like he had brought the sun with him. He was convinced that he had enough charm to melt entire glaciers.

At forty years old, it would have to be that charm that would maintain his reputation as a jet-setting playboy as he gallivanted about on an inheritance that wouldn’t run dry in the course of three lifetimes. His Father had made big money in the electronics industry and had made ample provision for his son to be bathed and fed and put to bed in style, every night, forever.

But Gunther had gotten paunchy and bored. Little wonder that he had turned to world travel to seeking out romance and sultry climates, come every German winter.

Gunther stood up and looked at the bodies strewn over the beach around him.

“Many beautiful ladies. Ja, I vill have to make uber friend vile I am here.”

He picked his way through the sunbathers as the conspicuous nub in his thong pointed east, to the water, where its pleasant coolness encouraged more temperate thoughts. He was oblivious to the shocked stares and derogatory remarks that were left in his wake by those that were unfortunate enough to look his way.

Gunther kicked his feet and took leisurely strokes as he swam out past even the furthest swimmers.

He had always been a strong swimmer. It was a skill that had made him popular with his peers back in Germany. It was the only talent of his that he could name, unless he counted his knack for picking up vulnerable, emotionally fragile women, and he didn’t count that because it was more of a sinister hobby that he ignorantly pursued without much thought.

Therefore, he was very proud of the swimming.

He rolled over on to his back and floated on the gently undulating swell. A long, white contrail from the exhaust of a plane was starting to smudge on the deep cobalt blue sky. His ears were beneath the surface, and all he could hear were the muted sounds of distant beach-goers through the water.

A sharp tone suddenly screamed through the indistinct submarine hum, startling Gunther. He righted himself in the water and looked toward the source of the sound that could only have come from the shore. The first thing to catch his eye were the yellow and red caps of the two lifesavers as they sprinted through the sand toward the water.

“How exciting,” thought Gunther, “a vescue. Probably some dumkopf has gone out of his depth.”

He turned his head in the other direction and tried to push himself up in the water in an effort to see who it was that was drowning.

If that was indeed what was happening. There was no one out further than him as far as he could see.

He heard the whistle scream again, like an osprey swooping down on a fish.

The two lifesavers were now plunging through the shallows and waders were scrambling out of their way. Panic seized Gunther as the possibility occurred to him that there could be a shark out here with him. He spun around in the water, rotating a jerky three-sixty degrees but he couldn’t see anything. No dark shape looming through the transparent sea. Even so, he thought it best to head back in.

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