Conversation : The Leap
Originally in verse, written in December 2013, I decided to try this out in prose format, especially as quite a few books I read also now dispense with inverted commas etc to signify speech.
The Leap
Chapter One
I'm here again. Would you give me your grace again? I'm in a quandary. I can't hear You. I’m feeling alone, I’m looking for promises, guarantees.
I sing to you in my prayers. Yet you remain silent! Would you shelter my heart? Would you give me reasons please, reasons for my existence, a hint perhaps of what you want of me, and give me a peg to hang my coat on as I face the storms when trying to live out my dreams?
Will you grace me with Your Presence again? I’m alone here. Cold and frightened and with no one to hold or embrace me. Inwardly, I’m crying, and I don't know what to do! Are you even listening?
The wind swirls around. It is cold and uninviting on the cliff-top. The hood is comfortless. No, He’s not here. He has abandoned me! He never was here!! All this stuff I’ve been fed is myth and twaddle. Maybe he has never existed.
What would happen if I leapt? Yes. That’s it! Leap, because there’s no point, no purpose in continuing, on this damp, bleak, hellish Monday morning. I can't carry the burdens of others anymore! Nor can I face them. I’ve let none of them down, but the responsibility is too great. It’s a burden, and when responsibilities become burdens, get rid of the burdens. It’d be swift, instant even; those rocks will dash, and the tide will throwm me out to sea, the salt cleansing my soul, removing my sins from me.
Yeah! This is the way forward! This is the way down! This is the way out!!
A step closer, the ground loose between my toes.
Chapter Two
Watch your foot there. You’re here! You didn’t answer me!! That does not mean I'm not here.Yes but You gave me such hope beforeand. Now I haven’t seen You run the shoreline in days and I can’t live without you. I could have ended it all just now...Yes and to your surprise you were suddenly blown back and wondered on the timing of a gust of wind! Are you saying, that that was…?
Full of questions again, I see?! I like that! It means I have your attention. You’re concentrating on me. That’s good. You won’t go wrong by so doing.
Yes but…
Remember what I said before? That I rarely show myself but just occasionally I will reveal My Deity? Yes. That was incredible. Well, sometimes I show My Presence through the Elements : Earth, Fire, Water, Air.
Chapter Three
Remember that story? The one you love?
There are many. Yes, but the one that always catches your imagination. You mean when You rebuked the wind?Ah! Now we’re getting somewhere! Remember, I rarely make statements. I prefer to ask questions. You remember what they asked that morning in the deepest darkest night, shocked to their core?
Yes...“Who is this? That even the winds and the seas obey Him.”
Good! So! Go on. Ask me what’s on your mind. I'm listening.Well, if I had leapt, would you have come to my aid?
Silence. Presence and Absence. Present but absent. Is this my mind playing tricks? Am I just imagining conversations I’d like to have?
The wind picks up, a powerful gust pulling me backwards from the edge.
Tell me that other story you love…
Startled!
‘That You’d not allow his foot to dash upon the stone, because you’d break his fall, and that you’d give charge to angels to safeguard him’ or somthing like that.
Again, good! Look around you …
A shimmering in the sky. Wide-eyed wonderment.
There! You see? The very Host! The Powers and Principalities, you know them by; now you see for yourself they are as real as you and me.
I go now but My Spirit is with you and in you indwell your heart. Listen. It’s good that you have these doubts and uncertainties! It means you’re growing. And you’re never alone. Never ever forget that.
That shadow! Just then!!
Yes, the beating of eagles wings. Keep that thought!...
Let’s meet here again tomorrow, and none of your twaddle and myth about leaping. Okay? Deal?
Yes. Deal!
Good lad, good man.
Tomorrow. Thanks, Tomorrow.
30 December 2022
All Rights Reserved
© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2023
Composed 2 December 2013
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
