One day, at sunset, just after all the other guards had gone off duty, my dad spotted an old man floating flat on his face, bobbing around in the surf. He performed a rescue and dragged the guy onto the shore. The man's cold, graying skin clung tightly to frail, unmoving, rigor mortised limbs. The poor old fool was certainly dead. But the eyes...piercing orbs flush with a dark, primordial, sanguine intensity...they were crying...screaming for help! Beckoning! Beckoning!

My father initiated cardiopulmonary resuscitation at once. Locked in a life-giving kiss, he could feel the old man's heart pumping in unison with his--warm, crimson blood flowing like a river...enveloping , calming, suffocating, all-consuming...overcome with darkness...sleep.

Dad woke up in a hospital bed. Summoning a fragile voice, aged far beyond his years, my father struggled in vain to solve the rescue's mystery. Maniacally, pleadingly, he asked the question..."Did the old man live?"

"Old man?" queried the doctors. "You were alone when they found you-- half-drowned and washed ashore. Get some rest Mr. Murphy." Bewildered and exhausted, my father collapsed into a deep, narcotic slumber. But not even sleep, whose cool embrace is but a shadow in Death's dark looking glass, could spare him from dreaming a nightmarish dream of the eyes....those eyes!