Holy crap! I totally forgot about this. I wrote this ages ago. It's kind of juvenile, but a description of leaping up into a new dimension nonetheless. It still makes me laugh.
In
some ways I remember my first days with fondness. Of course, there should be no way that I
could remember such a time, but I have long come to terms with the freakish
wonder that I am. The beginning of my
memory goes back to the nest, or hatchery.
(The plethora of names by which we referred to our place of origin has
always practically been a hobby, or at least an exercise in amateur wit.) We were all spoiled—allowed to play and roam
in our confines as we pleased. I was one
of the stronger ones, with a strong, aerodynamic nose and long tail, and could
swim with the best. The water of our
nursery was constantly churning, which sent us repeatedly head over tail. But we didn’t mind in the least—we were born
to swim.
Though
we were spoiled, there was never a time when we were not aware of our eminent
rite of passage required of every one of us.
Whatever preconceived notions we might have had, we all knew the ordeal
would be the ultimate test of our strength, a passage into a life so
irrevocably removed from the free innocence of the nest. For most of us, I think this awareness was a
good thing, as it provided a vague yet electric under current to our play. But there was nothing that could have truly
prepared us for what we were thrust into.
Like waves of triathlon-ers, we were discharged in groups; squeezed right out of the hatchery and sent
splashing in a manner so much more violent than any churning we had known. We had little to guide us save that we were
to swim till we could no longer.
Seeing
as I am telling this story, it is somewhat redundant to say that I was the one
to survive and be accepted into the inner circle. I really don’t know how I managed to make the
journey without losing my way on some dead-end passage. And somehow I had the strength to
finish. But it is not for the glory of
completing the journey, of passing the rite, that I find myself writing down my
thoughts. This is not to say that I was
not a plenty-proud little squirt when I first realized I was going to make it
in, but the scope of my perspective back then is such a laughable matter in
spite of how affectionate I remain to the memory. What is worth mentioning however, is
what I remember as the inner circle accepted me into my new destiny.
There were several
different schools of thought back in the nursery concerning the life beyond,
life in the inner circle. There were
some that taught us that it was an eternal life, an everlasting reward for
having persevered till the end. I
suppose there were disagreements about whether it was actually your own efforts
or simply that you had been chosen, but the prize in each case was eternal. If only they knew. But I suppose from their perspective, it may
be the best way to get it across. (Nothing
lasts forever but the earth and sky is not technically true either.) After all, there have been countless
generations that have completed their time in the hatchery. They could never fathom what time means to me
in my existence now.
And
then there was the other school of thought.
They were all about losing yourself, about being stripped of everything
but your essence until your awareness expanded to where one’s consciousness embraced
the whole. There was some truth to all
that. I can still remember the whole
process as I worked my way into the inner circle. I was stripped of my tail and even my
head, till I was left with nothing but what would carry one into the life
beyond. And to say that my awareness
expanded was not a bad description for those little buggers. Too good, I suppose, because I started
believing them. But you can’t really
blame me. I was absorbed into the world
of the inner circle and then grow I did…exponentially. How could I not think that my consciousness
had embraced the whole world? I became
bigger than anything I knew existed, and from my frame of mind, the process
seemed to go on for an eternity.
But
it wasn’t forever; and I wasn’t the world.
There came a day when I would be forced on another journey—yet this time
without any forewarning or advice. It
was nothing like that first rite of passage, for I had no say in the matter and
was forced and squeezed to where I knew not.
Was this the end…of me…of the world? I remember wondering. You laugh because you are on this side of the
experience, but I had yet to learn that I was only a babe in an infinite
universe…And I didn’t even know how to swim.
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