And What Became of the Adventure

I am made of naught but scales and claws, a living combination of all the ideas I'd least like to be, and from my nostrils comes a fire kindled by a hatred for all that is good and true and beautiful. I am trapped inside myself, inside a skin I'd rather peel away, a skin outside of which I would rather step.

Beside me lies my greed and the bile of my hypocritical philosophy and my false religion and the throat scratching, coughed up lies of a black soul insipidly slipping into nothingness and nowhere. I have devoured a world of joy and in one giant unsavory swallow turned it into pain and grief.

But, as I wallow in my own fading, false, existence He comes to me and beckons me to leave my own torn nets of self-deceit and follow Him. To where? I do not know, but I dare not disobey, nor turn away...

He leads me to his mountain, to where his pool resides. The water looks so calm, so clear, and from it's face a shining, blinding light exudes so strongly that I must look away and I soon realize that it is a beautiful mirror of His eyes, shining brilliantly, lovingly, tearfully: a reflection of heaven. And the mountain, too, is reflected in the water: so regally, so majestically.

He bids me undress my pitiful distress right there before Him; before all these bright realities. And so I scrape and scratch, and claw, and cry. Three times I fail to free myself of all my bitter skin. But patiently, and with a glimmer oh so close to Hope in his eyes, he says to me "I must undress you now, I must make you whole."

And he begins to peel away the skin and it hurts as all the bitterness and lies and tears and cowardice falls at my feet and I stand there naked and humbled, but better to stand naked before Him then fully clothed before any other. What a pain to bear: a pain which passes that I might know true Joy! And when He's finished, my freedom now ensured, he bids me step into the water and I do as I am told.

And as I step in, the water ripples as a sigh as I am washed clean and every fear I know sinks slowly to the bottom. And a breeze, cool and light, settles on the pool and on my face and like music it rushes through all I am becoming, it's refrain suggesting I am new; with water I have been made clean.

And I turn to thank Him but He is gone. Where He stood remains two broken boards and a pool of blood: a beautiful, broken, painful, crimson reminder of all I used to be.

DK