The weight presses in on all sides. It comes first from the north. Soon there is equal force from the east, west, and south. She can feel the pressure but since it is all around, in ways it is offsetting. With each breath she lets out, the next is even more shallow as if a giant anaconda has her in its grip, squeezing, and slowly sucking the life out of her.
She needs air so she gulps but nothing comes in.
Down she slips and slowly slides, ever downward to a pit of unknown origin and hopeless retreat into an object of undefined uncertainty. A familiar place and despite darkness and the pressure, there is also some comfort. She has been there before. Doubt casts a pervasive shadow like showers of cold rain soaking through her clothing to her skin and to her bone. Fear is there lurking but not the surprising fear of horror and fright but instead the sulking, tepid and persistent fear that is ever present, able to hide in the shadow of the smallest pebble.
She twists slightly but not of her own control. Perhaps some creature, far away, has swished its tail causing a flow of movement that, after miles and miles of distance crossed, has brushed against her arm causing her floating body to slip to the side. The movement and motion reveals the pit that she slipped into. A deep well for which there is no bucket and there is no rope. A well, filled with thick fluid, like molasses that facilitates a pull to the bottom that is seemingly endless.
The pressure is complete and exhausting and she has quit fighting. That is a problem. She is allowing the fall to happen. She doesn’t enjoy it but she accepts it assuming that fate has laid this path for her, the path of joyless being and the fate of forgetting her love of life and accepting the mediocrity of living moment by moment of perceived failure.
There is a glimmer. It flickers there close by, seen but unseen, she knows that it is there but she is afraid to grasp it. Perhaps it will take her to a sludge that completely swallows her up suffocating her will and her breath but in retrospect, she is already in that place, deep in a well of sorrow and despair.
If she were to grab that light, where would it take her?
Uncertainty pulls her deeper down into darker levels of the well. The pressure grows like a vine around her lungs choking off the possibility of charity, of love, of hope. Eyelids heavy, breath almost exhausted, she senses the light’s flicker once again. It calls to her. A familiar voice, it beckons through the thick and foul sludge of doubt, fear, and anxiety like the ting of a crystal glass in an early morning forest.
A hand touches the light as it bobs up and down, tantalizing to the touch. It is her hand. It is her touch. She has reached out without thought or calculation. Risk was there but what was there to lose? It does not matter as she had nothing left to give. She had given it all up.
A kernel of hope hanging in the darkness of the ooze that enveloped and suffocated her every breath and her hand alighted enough to grip the lit feather attached to the hook. Its sharp prick gripped her finger and embedded into her skin giving her a painful reminder. “I am here,” it said.
The feather hid the hook and the hook was attached to a filament of thread that slowly pulled her up from the depths of the well. Skyward, she rose of a power not her own, pulled with care and ease but pulled with determination and great might; a constant tug against the morass of hate, morbidity and failure.
Emerging, the first breath fills her lungs like the joy of a spring day after a long, gray winter alone. She erupted into a world of bright greens, blues, and oranges that sprinkled the atmosphere in all directions. Sparks of light flitted about her head while the sound of babies giggling filled her ears placing a gentle but cautious smile on her face.
Landing, crouched on her knees, the hook left her finger and before her stood a small man of Asian descent. His wide brimmed hat shielded him from the brilliant sun that shone behind him. His warm smile and a gentle nod greeted her. A fishing pole rested in his palm.
“I am here for you,” he said with a nod.
“Thank you. Why did you save me?”
“Because you needed saving.”
“Are you an angel? Are you God? Who are you?”
“I am that song that comes on the radio that reminds you of your first dance. I am the smell of apples and cinnamon that reminds you of your mother who used to cook those splendid pies. I am the view of a young man with grease on his hands from tinkering with his automobile engine that reminds you of your father. I am the sight of that rocking chair that reminds you of the warmth of your grandmother’s knee and I am the sound of that chuckle that both your grandfathers used to make when you tried to tell them a joke. I am the coo of a baby that reminds you that you were once a child and you still possess the openness and careless love of a child. I am the essence of hope that you can have joy in your life once again. You just need to take that essence and do something with it. I am those moments past, present, and future that lift your spirit from the depths of depression.”
Unsure what to say, she just smiled.
“I am your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, a friend, an enemy, a husband, a wife or any number of people who interact with you daily that you could give hope to. You just need to give a smile without expectation of a smile in return. You just need to say ‘hello’ without any expectation of a ‘hello’ in return. You just need to give a gift of joy without expectation of receiving anything back. Put others first and you will find joy in every deed you do.”
“Why did you save me from the well?”
“I did not save you from the well; you saved yourself. I only showed you the way.”
The fisherman smiled and began to fade.
“WAIT!” she called out with desperation, “What if I find myself in the well again?”
“You will find yourself in the well again and I will be there to lure you out again. You can count on me to come from inside of you. Whenever you need me, hope, and I’ll be there.”
The sun shown over the waves blinding her to his presence and then he was gone. Or, was he suddenly everywhere? She didn’t know.
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