From the Memoirs of a Little Squirt

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.