REDEMPTION

By Rob Weddle(featured writer for TPI)

Malevolent faces preoccupy me of late, bubbling up from the depths and then melting into the foam, again and again for days, weeks now.

They haunt my dreams; these sea-creatures, silhouetted against an orange horizon, twisting and contorting into hideous scows of disfigurement and torture. Some mystic, others blinded. Some fear-eyed and toothless, others devoid of human characteristics.

All whisper-shouting one word: Die.

DIE DIE DIE DIE

Throughout these weary nights, adrift in a sea of anguish, the Reaper’s vessel cuts a terrifying silhouette against a looming, night sky. His ghastly demon-servants encircle my cadaverous ship, wooing me with deceptive, cryptic poetry:

“Tis sweet liberation, sailor, to die by thine own hand!
Celebrated discharge from drowning remorse.
This forlorn pirate will never again set foot on rigid land.
Ahoy, the dark captain begs this ship alter its course!”

Hatred couples with consuming hunger for death as I allow myself one last twenty-four span of emptiness.

My loathing for everything I am will soon override my selfish fear of eternal damnation.

I beg the night one kindness: give me the capacity to act on my deepest longings!

Captivating and lethal, the fiends continue their funeral hymn:

DIE DIE DIE DIE

My cries of agonizing dread—gruesome in their sense of pitch—rumble from the depths of my drenched and shivering body. Waves ascend and threaten to capsize. Olden days are past, when a bright and blinding sunrise chased away morbid dreams. Daylight canvassed wickedness and painted another blissful dawn. Reality seemed nearly tolerable, even childlike in its simplicity.

All I required was a gentle breeze to usher me along.

Then they who had lain dormant in reverence to the sun would awaken to once again lesion this mortal coil.

But, alas, ’tis a far worse fate I shall suffer in these, my ‘last days.’ The paralyzing fright of the Doom Harvester which once held me at port now beckons me cast out into an angry and unforgiving sea. A hunger for escape (but escape to what?) is taking control, growing sails like shadowy wings where once clammy skin was taut over brittle shoulder bones. The mirage of imperishable hope fritters away, revealing nothing more than more of nothing.

DIE DIE DIE DIE

Horrifying shrieks have drained all passion, leaving me comatose. Panic-stricken gazes fade into vacant stares. With spirit drawn and quartered, I resign myself to cessation. The long, hard voyage must finally come to an end.

One last night of fitful sleep, and then I will set about the untaken course.

This session of demon garble seems to vary somewhat from the customary insanity, though! Intermingled with the death chants are growling haunts of laughter.

DIE DIE HA HA HA
DIE DIE HA HA HA

At this moment I’m chicken-scratching my running narrative on tattered paper, and I must admit it’s quite disconcerting. Had my tormenters wisely chosen to regale me with the usual round of madness and garbage, I would have indeed carried out my suicidal plan without a hitch.

Ai, but now I’m thinking otherwise!

Their murmurings blow into the damp wickedness of my room, sending the map I have been following out of my hands and out to sea. From the bowels of this craft I scurry onto the deck to retrieve the chart of my dark fortune, glancing skyward.

Strange.

Strange and even stranger.

Clouds which had once crawled along ominously now seem to be dissipating as molecules split in fevered succession. For the first time in a decade I allow my eyes to wander away from my own personal creation of hell; away from this spiraling expedition of self-butchery.

Perhaps the harbinger of doom can stay his skeletal hand, if only for an instant. For in this moment I feel not as flotsam adrift in the black ocean, but rather, as a miniscule grain of sand on a long and colorless beach. The obsession which had upended me quivers in abject horror of being discovered a fraud. The selfishness which had spewed words like ‘victimized’ and ‘helpless’ and ‘hopeless’ is slaughtered with one swift stroke of reality.

I am not alone…

If this is true, then I am not unique in my foreboding visions. Hollow deception stares back at me from the murky depths, imploring me to bathe, but I shall not have it!

I cannot yet deduce the source of this derailing revelation, other than to say it is ‘other-worldly.’

Vacant eyes suddenly rage with gallant passion. Hands resting corpse-dead at my side are drawn in to form two seething fists of rage. In my nakedness I must formulate a battle plan, as victory over a dreadnaught shall not be easy going! Thoughts of half-gnawed limbs and water graves… vanished.

A fleck of light trickles through gray storm clouds.

The waters seem to quiet a bit as an impulsive awareness capsizes forgone destinations.

The thought is simplistically revolutionary.

Mutinous.

I want to live…
I WANT TO LIVE!!!!!!!!!

Easier believed than conceived, though, right? But now that hunger for laughter possesses my spirit more strongly than any leviathan, I am determined to break through to the “other side,” as the famous rock poet once sang. It is my next ambition to locate this cerebral outlaw. Planting both feet firmly on the shifting sands of deception, a familiar howl escapes my being. This time it is not a scream of agony, but rather of longing for eternal freedom. Lungs once resigned to drown resonate with curious need for release.

I need to know if ‘it’…

No, I need to know if ‘He’…GOD…

is real. A lifetime of fish stories are instantly drained of their worth. I can no longer sail the stormy sea of opinion. I have to discover the truth for myself. I need to detach from the liberalized media who spew their verbal diarrhea in all directions.

Separate me from childhood speculation and ‘expert’ conjecture!

I have to know.

“GOD” I hear myself shout to the newly dawning sky.
“IF YOU ARE REAL, SHOW YOURSELF!!!!!!
“I need not a separation of the waters.
“Nor do I need a turning of those waters into wine.
“I just need to know.
“I JUST NEED TO KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“I just need to know.

“Please.

“Amen.”

Now…
quietly peacefully sanctimoniously curious am I…..
sacred tranquility?
pacifistic calm.
harmony between spirit and mind.
Restful serenity languidly flows over my troubled mind, transmuting venomous cells into angelic droplets of wonder.
I’m…
in good spirits…
???????

As a clear brook runs noiseless through a peaceful forest, so does this forgiving stream wash my depression and transgressions into the ocean of forgetfulness, to be remembered no more by my awesome Creator.

I find myself on my knees, humbled by unexpected refuge. Scorching heat has cooked my brown skin with such ferocity that my unexpected shelter brings temporary confusion.

Is this some kind of hoax?
Can forgiveness be found in such a simple task as asking?
“Forgive me Lord Jesus, a sinner,” said I.
Such a militant, foreign concept!
Bestial depravity annihilated? What is this, a verbal slaying? Hell put at bay with one swift stroke of Heaven?

A powerful voice speaks peace into my once-blackened heart.

“I am your strength, your shield, and your source of power and joy. I have always known you, always loved and protected you, since before the creation of the world. I am your fortress, your loving God.”

Oh, glorious truth!

Truth…it is a relative concept to some, and has somehow eluded me over the entirety of my life, until now. Explanations are impossible in these idyllic first minutes. Sinful putridity has been cleansed by the blood of Jesus, the Christ.

My liberator—the One murdered by religious fanatics—is He whose hallowed name serves as nothing more than a curse word to most.

One who understands my darkest fears, and has surveyed my vilest deeds…
..yet somehow still loves me.

I discover His spoken words have been bound together in one sanctimonious volume my parents once used as a bookend. I pore over every precious syllable as if my existence, my very fate, lies within its pages.

One prayer, uttered by a Biblical King named “David,” becomes a personal diatribe. Reading from the 57th chapter of Psalms, it is as follows:

“Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy!
I look to you for protection.
I will hide beneath the shadow of your wings
until the danger passes by.
I cry out to God Most High,
to God who will fulfill his purpose for me.
He will send help from heaven to rescue me,
disgracing those who hound me.
My God will send forth his unfailing love and faithfulness.
I am surrounded by fierce lions
who greedily devour human prey—
whose teeth pierce like spears and arrows,
and whose tongues cut like swords.
Be exalted, O God, above the highest heavens!
May your glory shine over all the earth.
My enemies have set a trap for me.
I am weary from distress.
They have dug a deep pit in my path,
but they themselves have fallen into it.
My heart is confident in you, O God;
my heart is confident.
No wonder I can sing your praises!
Wake up, my heart! Wake up…
I will wake the dawn with my song.
I will thank you, Lord, among all the people.
I will sing your praises among the nations.
For your unfailing love is as high as the heavens.
Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the highest heavens.
May your glory shine over all the earth.”
To this I will add nothing, save this: the glorious flood of redemption is a crystal river which all may drink from.

Amen (or in the old language, “SO BE IT”)