Baptism by Fire

A Story by Shelley Holt-Lowrey

A short story that filtered up during a very loud silence

Over the last few years, life has come at me ceaselessly. At full throttle.

It has given no quarter, provided no apology, offered no explanation.

Challenges were lobbed, tossed, hurled or thrown at me with dizzying speed.

Such is the way with life.

There have been few rest stops along the way.

As I look over my shoulder at the oceans of life I have just crossed I see expended verbs floating weightlessly in my wake: containing, adjusting, creating, releasing, holding, pushing, pulling, guiding, prodding, mourning, rising, falling, failing, succeeding - I have become these actions, as I have leap frogged from one life moment to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next.

I have become perpetual motion.

The cadence of my oars hitting water is ceaseless.

A never-ending staccato of paddles banging against hull is tattooed into my psyche.

All of these thoughts begin to crowd one another in my head. As they seek their own space, they begin roiling, rumbling, crashing, into one another, onto one another - violently cresting toward what I believe will be an unrestrained crescendo that will devour me. Sound and motion will soon swallow me whole, pulling me under so completely I will no longer know up from down.

This wave of ceaseless thought and action rises menacingly above me, looming. I feel myself begin to fold inward, compressing my body as tightly as I am able to gird myself against the crushing weight of the onslaught.

I have become a static contraction - ready and awaiting my doom.

........

The blow never comes.

.......

Silence

Stillness

Quiescence

Placidity

........

An unbidden tranquility floods my soul.

It liquifies all that had become rigid and unyielding within me.

And I am reminded once more of my complete and absolute humanness.