Catharsis

My swimming coach pushed me underwater with one quick thrust. He is firmly pressing down my shoulder, not allowing me to surface. I'm supposed to practice holding my breath underwater until I simply cannot do so any longer. I open my mouth and the water rushes in. I'm choking, I'm flailing my arms and screaming in panic. I cause not a ripple in the world above me. They cannot hear a thing. The water around me sways in silence, threatening to swallow me.

It did not last one whole minute. Several years later, that memory is still raw. The fear of water is long gone. But my associations with the memory are dark and ominous. It promises to haunt me for a long time yet.

What does one do when life morphs into a cycle of anxiety, uncertainty, doubt and fear? I seek control and calm. I'm left staring at calamitous chaos instead. Gosh! My brakes gave way while going downhill on hairpin bends.

Quests can be tiring, especially when they renew themselves without notice. Even more so when they pawn me in their duels with each other. Is it even possible to deserve such extreme conflict?

The dots of life shine on, slowly drifting apart in some preordained continuum. No thread remains to go from one to the next. No shortcut. No lifeline.

Grapple

I put life behind a magnifying glass. The exaggerated details jumped out at me. Menacing. Chilling. My diary of dreams stands irreversibly altered, marked all over in a merciless red. The soft sepia glow is gone. The crystal chandelier has turned into ugly shards of glass strewn beneath my feet, checkered again with scrapes and bruises. Voices in my head scream, "I told you so." Ouch! Such sarcasm in the undertone.

Words capture but a passing moment, I always insist. I will this one to pass too, but in vain. For a pervasive hopelessness now prevails where innocent happiness once abounded. Eternity to me will remain a concept, a lost faith. Ether, simply ether.