by C. S. Elston
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Before Breakfast
Rio had never been one to sleep her life away, nor had she ever gone a whole night without sleeping a wink only to start her day feeling like she’d just had the best sleep of her life. She was completely ready and waiting in the lobby of the girls’ dorm just before 8:30am. That put her at over half an hour early. True, she was excited about what the day had to offer and she was really looking forward to spending it with Luke. However, the main reason Rio had arrived in the lobby so early was simply the fact that she had never gone to sleep and, therefore, had nothing else to do.
She wished she’d had the keys to the pool because she would have loved to go for a swim. But, that wasn’t possible. Instead, she had to settle for an extra-long shower in which she had spent some time playing with her new abilities. She had stood under the shower head and redirected the water spray all over the sixteen-square-foot stall. The biggest kick came when she had telepathically spread the water out so it thinly sprayed everywhere and became like a mist after which she quickly funneled it into a steady stream like it was bursting out of a wide-open hose. She was practically famous for taking long showers but, this may have been her longest one yet.
With the lengthy shower having been over for more than an hour, Rio found herself waiting for Luke’s arrival and time seemed to be nearly standing still. Luckily, Luke was excited about spending the day with her as well. So, she didn’t have to wait too long. Luke arrived about ten minutes early and, he wasn’t about to tell Rio but, truthfully, he could have been there about ten or fifteen minutes before that. Of course, they greeted each other ardently and immediately started walking toward the van. Excitement was certainly in the air.
“How’d you sleep?” Luke asked, sincerely.
“I didn’t,” Rio answered, honestly.
“At all?”
“At all.”
“Why not? Was everything okay with your room?”
“Everything was great,” she interrupted to reassure him. “I just never got tired.”
“You must be exhausted then.”
“I’m really not.”
“Wow,” Luke genuinely responded.
“I know. I’ll probably hit a wall later.”
“Yeah, I would think so. What’d you do all night?”
“Mostly laid in bed with my thoughts.”
“Thoughts about finding your father?”
“That was part of it,” Rio responded as they arrived at the van and Luke unlocked the passenger side door for her. She climbed in and reached across the driver’s seat to unlock his door as he closed hers and walked around to his side. Rio sat back in the passenger seat and looked out the front windshield, realizing for the first time just how close they were to a lush, green mountain.
“That’s gorgeous,” she exclaimed as Luke climbed in and closed the door behind him.
“Mount Gozaisho. Not bad, huh?”
“Not bad at all,” she agreed.
Rio finally peeled her eyes away from the beautiful view and pointed at another circle on the map as she informed him, “That’s our destination for today, by the way.”
“Okay,” Luke said as he started to look it over. “Heading a little further south and a lot further east today, I see.”
The distance wasn’t exactly a surprise to Rio since she could see that by looking at the map but, she did calculate in her mind that Luke’s statement meant this was more than ninety minutes in the car each way since that was about how long it took them to get to CYOI from her mother’s old house the previous night. She realized that it was a good thing that she enjoyed the company with whom that time would be spent.
“Yeah, I think we can find this,” Luke finally said. “So, what else?”
“What else, what?”
“You said finding your father was part of what you laid awake thinking about,” Luke said as he set the map down and put the keys in the ignition to start the van. “What else did you think about?”
“Quite a few things,” Rio answered, reflectively. She looked out of the passenger side window as the van started to move.
“If you don’t feel like talking about it, you don’t have to.”
“Well,” Rio started with a bit of hesitation before finally going for it. “I was thinking about the conversation we had about God and the Bible.”
“Oh, okay.”
“How can you be so confident that your religion is the right one? I mean, isn’t it possible that all roads lead to the same place?”
“First of all, in spite of the old saying about Rome, that’s not how roads work. Second, there are hundreds of religions out there and they can’t all be true because they contradict each other.”
“Okay, that’s fair. So, how do you know?”
“Well, like I said yesterday, the Bible is accurate in every way that it can be tested.”
“I know you did say that it was philosophically consistent and that its scientific, historical and geographical claims had been proven factual.”
“And, prophecy.”
“Right. But, not to sound dumb . . . ”
“You don’t sound dumb, Rio. This is heavy stuff that deserves a lot of questions.”
“Thank you,” Rio said, looking at him appreciatively. “But, what does all of that really mean?”
“Well, in large part, the Bible is a history book. It provides us with all kinds of information, including the customs, languages, ethics, religions and cultures of many ancient civilizations. And, when you compare what it says on those subjects with other sources, the Bible is proven to be accurate, reliable, and factual every single time. Secular archaeologists frequently use it to determine the location of their digs and, when they do, they consistently prove that reliability all over again. The last hundred years of archaeology have been fantastic for proof of the accuracy of the Bible. Thousands of finds in the Middle East have supported the biblical record. Places and events once thought by many to be legendary and mythological have instead been proven to be factual by archaeological digs.”
“Like what?”
“Like the city of Jericho and the Hittite civilization. The five cities in Genesis and even the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Like the fact that Israel’s ancestry is derived from Mesopotamia and all the world’s languages come from a common place of origin. Jewish captivity and their entrance to Jerusalem through a tunnel during the reign of David. All of which is taught in the Old Testament. But, the New Testament has been proven every bit as factual. Particularly the book of Acts which we now know had to be written within thirty years of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Luke was written even earlier, by the same author, which means eyewitnesses would have still been alive to refute anything inaccurate or exaggerated.”
“I don’t know anything about any of that, let alone what’s questionable and what’s not.”
“The point is that it was all considered questionable a hundred years ago and archaeology has proven that the Bible got it right thousands of years earlier.”
“Huh,” Rio pondered. “Wow.”
“Yeah. There hasn’t been an archaeological discovery yet that disproves anything in the Bible. Add to that the fact that there is no other religious document that provides thousands of prophecies regarding a whole host of subjects and then watches history fulfill those prophecies with total accuracy and I find it impossible not to believe the Bible.”
Luke continued talking but Rio’s mind began to drift. Her thoughts were on the things that Luke was explaining at first but, then they turned into what was happening with her. Of course, that included what she was doing there in Japan but those thoughts were also about the things that were going on with her physiologically. Ultimately, she started testing her vision abilities and trying to discover just how far off in the distance she could now see.
“I’ve got a bunch of books I can give you with tons of this kind of information if you’re interested in r
eading them,” Luke went on but finally stopped when he realized that he wasn’t getting any kind of response and hadn’t for quite some time. He looked over at Rio and noticed that she was staring out the window with great intensity.
“Rio?” he asked. “Did I bore you to sleep by going on and on?”
Still no response.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Makes sense after you didn’t sleep last night. I’ll try not to be offended.”
After noticing that her eyes were still open, Luke looked past Rio and out at the green field on the side of the road to see if he could tell what had Rio so transfixed. There was nothing there. He looked further away at the water off the coastline.
They were travelling south on Route 23 just outside of Yokkaichi and Rio appeared to be staring out at Ise Bay. Luke could understand why. It was beautiful to look at. Not unlike the person doing the looking, he admitted to himself. But, it was more than that. Rio seemed to be concentrating, as if she was trying to figure something out. He thought he could see a dot way in the distance. Maybe a boat or something. But, it was too far away. That couldn’t be it.
“Rio? Did I lose you?”
Finally, Rio responded but it wasn’t at all what Luke expected. “Get down there, now!”
“What? Where?”
“There!” she yelled, pointing to the coast on their left. “He’s drowning!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A Fisher Of Men
Luke, with heart racing, steered the van off the highway and onto a dirt road that wound its way toward the coastline as he peppered Rio with questions. “Who’s drowning? Who do you see? Where is he?”
“The man by the boat!”
“What boat?”
“The boat out there!” she said, frantically pointing.
“I don’t see anything. How can you see that far?”
Rio ignored the question as she continued insisting, “Just get down to the water.”
“Then what?”
“Then I showcase the competitive swimming skills I told you about.”
Luke glanced at Rio, surprised by her response and further surprised by the fact that she had begun to disrobe. The combination shocked him into silence as he sped down the bumpy dirt road and made an abrupt stop a few feet away from the water. By the time he did, Rio was already opening her door.
She leapt out and sprinted into the water. Luke couldn’t help but notice that she was only wearing her bra and panties. He told himself it was no different than a bikini as he climbed out of his side of the van and began praying for her safety.
Rio swam as fast as she ever had in any competition. Had she not been so focused on getting to the man by the boat, she would have taken notice of how good the cool water felt on her skin. Or, she may have noticed how choppy the waters were. Instead, she simply powered through, with a tunnel-vision-like approach, to try and save the life of someone she had never even met before.
Luke stood in front of the van, shocked by how quickly Rio was out of view. This, of course, made him very nervous. Lord, he continued to pray, protect her. Keep her safe. And, save this man as well. Please, send your angels to bring them both safely to shore.
That was the moment Luke noticed a woman standing about a hundred and fifty feet away. She was watching Rio just like he was. Or, was she watching the man on the boat? Could she be waiting for him to come in? Had she been there the whole time? Where did she come from? Luke didn’t see any car or bicycle around her and he thought she looked too old to have walked from anywhere of significant distance. But, there she was, just standing, alone, watching Rio and she took no notice of him.
Who cares? He thought. Rio and the man she was trying to save were all that mattered right now. He turned his attention back to the water, even though he couldn’t see Rio, and continued to pray.
Rio finally reached the boat but the man was nowhere to be seen. She dove under the water and looked around, ultimately spotting his lifeless body, about thirty feet away, as it sank directly below her. Swimming in a hard, torpedo-like dive, she raced toward the man as fast as she possibly could. Her hands shoved the water to her sides as she reached in front of her face and then spread her arms out and back to her sides to pull her body toward the bottom of the ocean with all her strength. Finally, she reached forward and grabbed the man’s shirt.
Pulling the limp body with her, she kicked her feet like a dolphin tail. It was a similar motion to the one she used when she turned at the pool wall in the middle of a race, right after kicking off the wall but before resurfacing for air. Had the man been conscious, he probably would have thought he was being rescued by a mermaid. Unfortunately, he was unable to make that mistake.
When Rio finally reached the surface, she gasped for air and pulled the man on top of her, his back resting on her chest. She noticed that he didn’t breathe and quickly decided that she could be back on land more quickly than she could lift the soaking wet, heavy man up into his boat to perform CPR. In fact, she doubted that she was strong enough to get him into the boat at all, even if she had, had more time. She immediately started to swim backwards with one arm while the other held the man in place. She kicked her feet as hard as she could but the man was really slowing her down. God, she found herself praying for the first time in her life, if you’re up there, please speed this up and help me save this man’s life.
Finally, Luke could see Rio. She wasn’t more than a hundred feet out. Without even thinking about it, he ran into the water to meet her. As soon as he arrived at Rio’s side, he lifted the man up onto his back and rushed to the shoreline where he laid the man down in the sand.
Rio followed Luke and watched as he immediately began to perform CPR. She couldn’t help but think about the fact that she felt like she had time-travelled on the way back to shore. Or, somehow, the distance out had been longer than the distance in. Perhaps, her very first prayer had been answered. If so, this man must be meant to live.
She calmly watched Luke go back and forth seven times between breathing into his mouth and pumping on his chest. But, it seemed, to Rio, like no progress was being made. Rio dropped slowly to her knees beside the man, opposite from Luke. She extended a hand and touched Luke’s chest to gently stop his actions.
“What?” Luke exclaimed. “I’m not done. We might still be able to save him.”
“I know,” she peacefully replied as she placed her hand a few inches above the man’s mouth and closed her eyes.
“What are you doing?” Luke asked.
Suddenly, water erupted out of the man’s mouth like it was being shot out of a geyser. It hit Rio’s hand and sprayed out around the man’s head.
Luke sat back on his haunches and just stared in awe. He wouldn’t believe it if he wasn’t seeing it with his own eyes. She was telepathically pulling the water out of the man’s lungs.
As the water stopped spewing, Rio placed her hand on the man’s chest and pumped it five times. She then breathed into his mouth before starting to pump his chest again. On the twelfth pump of Rio’s second round, the man sat up and gasped for air.
Luke continued to stare in total astonishment as the man caught his breath and then finally spoke.
“Arigatō, Rio.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Another Realm
Luke listened as Rio and the man had a conversation in which he introduced himself as Daichi, a life-long fisherman who couldn’t swim. He had never been in the water above his waist before today. More importantly, he told Rio that he had in fact died and that, while dead, he had a conversation with an angel who informed him that it simply wasn’t his time to go home yet. In fact, Daichi was told that a young woman by the name of Rio was going to be the one who brought him back.
Barely able to take his eyes off Rio and Daichi, Luke suddenly remembered the woman he’d seen watching and wondered what she thought of all of this. He spun around and searched with his eyes but the woman was no longer anywhere to be seen.
There goes the
theory that she knew the drowning man, he thought. Still, why would anyone leave in the middle of such an exciting event?
Deciding to ponder that mystery later, Luke turned his attention back to the miracle in front of him with his mind still racing.
Rio offered to give Daichi a ride to a pay phone so he could call a friend that he said would be willing to bring his boat down there and help him go back out into the bay so he could retrieve his fishing vessel. The three of them walked to the van and Rio introduced Luke. They exchanged pleasantries but, Luke was otherwise silent. Rio kept glancing at him awkwardly. She knew a conversation was coming and that, the longer she had Daichi around, the longer she could put it off.
On the ride back north, headed into Yokkaichi in search of a pay phone, Rio was putting her dry clothes back on over her wet undergarments when she mentioned that Luke worked near Mount Gozaisho at Christian Youth Outreach International and Daichi’s face lit up. He explained that his son had attended camp there less than a year prior and had come to know Jesus on the final night of his stay. He also told them his son’s salvation had spread through the family and that he was proud to call himself a follower of Jesus as well. It turned out the man he was going to call was not only a friend but his pastor who held a church service in his house.
For a moment, it was all too overwhelming for Luke. He had literally run into this stranger in the airport. Sure, he was instantly attracted to her but he had also felt that helping her was the right thing to do. So, he was driving her around and had even given her a place to stay. But now, she had seen an accident that was taking place too far away for any normal human being to see. Then she had performed a miracle right in front of his eyes and saved this man’s life. Finally, it turned out that the man’s son had become a Christian at one of CYOI’s camps and had led that very man to the Lord. So much mystery and coincidence that none of it could be coincidence at all.
At first, it was too much, even for a man of such great faith. But, Luke gradually let it sink in that the man Rio saved, in a nation where only a fraction of one percent of the population shared that faith with him, was a practically brand new follower of Jesus Christ. His mood slowly lightened and his smile progressively brightened.