SABIS the SURVIVOR

Chapter 4: Visions

Chapter 4: Visions

Gadi

From the coldest swim ever and into the freezer! I was thrust into this new Ice Age in an instant. I almost lost my life. I did lose my parents.

I still search for my wife and two kids. Hopefully I will soon be reunited with my family. I had survived. I needed to dry out my water-logged boots and jacket so I searched for some shelter from the temperamental winds.

"Oh God, you saved me and I am grateful. Now, please guide me to your shelter."

As I searched the windswept and water-blasted environs, my vision went in and out of focus. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand then batted them. A haze still filled my field of vision. With my fingertips a lighter shade of purple, I had to blow hot air onto them to both warm them and prove to myself that I still had some inner fire. If Marie were here, she'd tell me that I was full of it─hot air, that is.

With my slightly rewarmed and reanimated fingers, I pulled out my canteen, used my nylon jacket to unscrew the hard to handle and now freezing cold metal cap, and swigged some super chilled water cousin of this newly-frozen landscape. Then I saw Marie and the kids and I running in the fields of lavender and olive trees in the southern part of France. We were holding hands, laughing, and then tumbling in the green and golden field. If Puff the Magic Dragon had been there, then we would not have been surprised. We were home in the south of France, basking in the soft and gentle breeze, and frolicking without a care or concern. I reveled in that moment for as long as any moment in my life: It felt warmer than any heated jacuzzi, more relaxing than any movie theatre automatic recliner chair, and more satisfying than any food I have eaten after a long hard day at work.

Then I felt a disturbance in that wonderful moment. An impulse began to creep up my spine into my animal brain. I needed to breathe a huge sigh of relief then declare out loud to the heavens,

"I am Gadi and I am alive. Do you hear me, oh God, in the heavens?"

As soon as I had released that scandalous declaration and seen the vaporous volley leave my mouth, I breathed at ease again. Now my higher brain decided to analyze how my family, the Reyes, had survived and thrived: Abi had trekked in the mountains, Father had traded with the Inuit, and I had hiked in the mountain passages and valleys.

"Mother Earth, you have been guiding my family for generations. I owe you my life. You are my rock, my guide, and the giver of life. What sacrifice can I offer you to show you the depth of my love?"

With the fireplace poker, I fractured a piece of ice off a nearby ledge, then used the sharp shard to cut into my left palm. I held my palm upside down as my blood, now nearly thick as molasses, dripped two drops onto the cold ground. My tiny but heartfelt red offering immediately congealed.

I had found a new God. Mother Earth.

I wrapped my palm with the fallen evergreen leaves that surrounded me, imagined that the green chlorophyll pigment seeped into my capillaries, and hugged myself as if to swaddle the newborn me.

Then I exited that place of worship; the place where a new religion was born.

I decided to lay down my load and let go of my past errors in judgment. No more would I be a slave to what was. I decided to brave this new wilderness. I put all past sins aside and decided to open my eyes wide to the ever after where my past mistakes don't matter.

"From now on, I will clean out the cobwebs and dust from my mind, not dwell on the hardships I have endured or those I left behind. Oh Mother Earth, you can't inure me from the heartbreak of what I had lost, of the people who meant the most but are no more than memories. Even my enemies are no longer here. Shall I slash my wrists and bleed more precious heat into your hallowed ground? Or shall I stash your wise blades for another time, to perform ritual purges that can instill desire into my bones?"