Psalm 69

Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.

-       Psalm 69: 1-2

'No one is listening.'

    They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes but when you're seven years old that doesn't take long. This review comes and goes, a brief distraction, yet still I am left to confront the fact that my story is about to end. How is it that I find myself here? Why are others allowed to thrive at the same time I am perishing? Around me my friends and family are all very active. They continue talking, joking…laughing. Peacefully daydreaming they enjoy themselves, all the while completely unaware that so close to them I am struggling. If just one person could quiet himself, break free from self-absorbed thoughts for even a moment, my death might be noticed. Is there not one of you who cares enough to reach out to me?

    'I hate you all.'

    This is no time to feel sorry for myself though. In light of the reality of others, in view of the disturbing fact that I cannot…I will not…receive help from them, I must change tactics. As I again drop the short distance to the bottom of the icy river, a distance quickly becoming as humorous as it is deadly - so insignificant and yet quite enough to finish me - I review my situation.

    When I first stepped over the edge of the sandy hole and sank below the surface I wasn't even afraid. As my head disappeared below the waterline I felt no panic, no loss of peace. One step had banished me to this place; surely one step could restore me. Suddenly underwater, caught off guard with half a breath inside me, it seemed like a game, like some mischievous friend had grabbed my legs, yanking me under to surprise me. I think I even smiled.

    A tentative step forward, however, would reveal the unforeseen, one foot lifted onto the sandy incline expecting to simply walk my way out only to find the walls of the sunken pit collapse underneath me. The calmness and certainty of that initial step quickly gave way to frenzied motion but I was only running in place, a blur of bubbly wasted struggle producing no upward progress. All I could think was, 'I'm just like a cartoon', Wile E Coyote slipping on ACME grease doomed again to failure, to be crushed by a boulder I myself forced into motion. Fear set in, wrapping itself quickly around my spine and snaking upward, coiling around my chest until it wound its reptilian head next to my ear where it gently hissed: You're gonna die.

    'Just a little more time,' I begged. 'I'm not ready yet.'

My efforts to climb, soon nothing more than uncontrolled flailing, accomplished nothing save to deplete the little air I had left. Of necessity, the first of my changes in strategy began. I reeled in my limbs, ceased my efforts and sank silently to the bottom of the hole. Startled by the intense cold, my body shivered. Looking upward, I was shocked to see that only two feet of water separated this place from the world above.

    'How?' It felt like I drifted downward for so long.

    'Calm down,' I rebuked my panic. 'What's really happening?'

    'I don't know how to swim.'

    'And?'

    'It won't let me climb out.'

    'It's so close though.'

    'Maybe I just need to jump.'

    Bending at the knees I pressed against the bottom and pushed myself upward. My momentum quickly dissipated as the water's grip squeezed everything into sickeningly slow motion.

    'Am I going to make it? What if I do break the surface? What should I do? Scream for help or get air? Help or air?' My motion carried me just to the border where I felt the wind on my face for a split second.

    'Air.'

    The choice was made and I began sinking once again. I had at least bought some time. Now I had a plan. Allowing no extraneous motion, I let myself return peacefully to the bottom where I sank into a crouch. Tensing my tiny muscles I readied myself for another jump. This time I would scream for help. Extending myself and plotting a course for the surface, my arm escaped first, waving frantically in hopes of drawing some attention. My mouth followed with a yelp but it was over too quickly; I was submerged. I had thought I would have more time.

    'Does anyone hear me?'

    My own voice now echoed in my mind, weak and insubstantial, no more than a faint chirping. I cursed myself, admitting that I hadn't even sounded agitated. I sounded…calm. There was nothing in my pathetic cry that insinuated danger, nothing that spoke of alarm or a child in need. As I drifted gently downward I began reasoning. I'd just need to give myself a fraction more time above the water to let loose with a viable yell. I'd have to exert just one tiny iota more force. Just the smallest bit of extra effort on my part and I would be saved.

    'It's all up to me.'

    Again the bottom met my feet and I sank into a squat. I would put everything I had into this leap. All the power I had been given, all the strength these limbs could offer would have to be mustered.

    'I can do this.'

    With grim determination I propelled myself upward, straining every muscle, diverting every ounce of willpower and concentration to that one solitary task. I had to stifle the primal scream that wanted so desperately to escape me on the journey upward. First my hands broke the surface and I waved them, then my head rose and I'd done it. I'd gotten myself at least an extra inch into the air above.

    The scream came from deep within me, filling my insides completely before erupting into the physical world. It never even had a chance though. Ignored and thrown away, cruelly aborted, it was overshadowed by something else, drowned like its creator. I could see the adults on the beach so close by, but they were consumed with raucous laughter, hysterical because of some ill-timed joke. The entire snapshot was frozen in my mind's eye. As time ground to a halt only sound continued to unfold, the incessant laughter still playing at normal speed. Suddenly I was witnessing the entire scene from above. My imagination floated up into the air, scanning all the people there at the water's edge. The beach was crowded with faces but every head was turned to inspect the humorous outburst. The waters around me teemed with other children but their eyes had drifted beach-ward as well. Everyone wanted to know what was so funny.

    Having no idea what had been said, yet fully aware of humor, only I understood the true joke being presented. There I was, given one chance above water, one tiny allotment of time in which to be saved from my predicament, life and death placed squarely into my own small hands…and I had done it. I had gotten myself plainly into sight. I had made myself perfectly audible. I had done all I could do and yet it meant nothing.

    'It's not fair.'

    Anger overtook me as time returned and I started sinking. In frustration I tried for a second scream but it was no use. So great was my first effort that there was nothing left in my lungs to generate sound. Besides, I had no time and my feeble effort was truncated by a rush of liquid into my open mouth. I snapped my lips shut but it was too late. It was hardly anything, just a drop or two, but enough water poured down just the wrong pipe, initiating choking. As I returned again to my watery grave, felt the cold of my lonely sunken hole embrace me and saw the light of the sun above recede into the distance behind a murky film of water, a thoughtful serenity set in, surprising me.

    "I quit.'

    That made things so much easier.

    I knew I could only ignore the gag that was straining to come out of me for a few seconds at most. My body begged that I try to expel the few drops of water in my lungs. It demanded it, completely disregarding the consequences, oblivious to the quantity of liquid that would rush in to fill its place.

    'You don't care about me.' Even my own body is selfish, greedily preferring indulgence to wisdom and temperance. 'Et tu, body?'

    And so it is that I find myself here, buried beneath two feet of water, cut off from life and condemned to die while those I trusted laugh happily on a merry little beach just a few feet away. What's left to do, I ask you? What choice do I have anymore? Yes, my life flashes quickly before my eyes, a short and meaningless parade of childhood sensations and memories. This ends but I'm still here, suffocating in a cold dark airless hole at the bottom of a country river. So, what do I do? Annoyingly, there's still time to think before I must gasp for air and breathe in death.

    'I could try to jump again, couldn't I?' It seems pointless. There's no way I could come close to repeating that last leap. I doubt I have the strength left to even get my head above water. What should I do? My mind tells me to just give up, to stop trying and accept the inevitable. No one up there cares about you. No one is listening. Is that really true? Is there really no one who will help me?

    'Should I just give up and stop trying?'

    To my surprise I get an answer. From somewhere deep inside of me comes a firm and resonant 'no'. It vibrates my whole being. I am undeniably aware of this inward response, neither audible word nor actual sound but somehow real and spoken directly into my consciousness. Something…someone…has spoken to me. No, I should not give up.

    "No."

    My mind, silenced by this admonition, scowls sourly, but I have been heard.

    'I HAVE BEEN HEARD!'

    With my legs I push violently upward as my mouth opens and fills with water. I can't see clearly, my arms stirring the water around me into a blur of motion. I feel my hands touching the air above but I have not come close to getting my head topside. I'm choking, water rushing into me as each attempt to remove some just clears the way for more. I can't make it on my own, but I have been heard. I can't escape death on my own but I don't have to…I have been heard. Everything fades into blackness but I feel like I am being lifted. The waters recede around me and air caresses my face. I am being drawn up, supported, carried back to the safety of the shore. Adults gather around me as I choke and spit water onto a towel. I hear their murmurs of concern.

    I look up and see the face of the woman who pulled me from the water. I'm crying now but somewhere in the back of my mind, hidden behind the normal reactions of a drowning child, I am strangely calm. Who was this stranger that reached out to save me, to pluck my tiny helpless body from the jaws of death? Who was it really that acted when no one else could? Yes, I am now looking into the eyes of the human being who saw my tiny raised hands, who felt compassion and graciously stepped across the waters to fish me out, but I know there was someone else present as well. Now I can only wonder who really heard my cry. Everything is different now; everything's changed.

    I don't yet know who or how, but I know…

    'Someone is listening.'