The Deeps, The Stripe of Black: Training
It is dark here in the foothills above Santa Barbara. Bright houses prick the shadowed hill with a few pins of light, but they are like islands in a sea of black. I am alone in the murky deeps, the darkness on the edge of this bright city.
I have come for training. A hero is judged by how they confront their enemy. In my comfortable world, the word enemy is vague and as strange on the tongue as oppressor or jihad, but my comfort is a lie. My enemy and I have been introduced. And though I don’t know his name, I know his works.
The waxing crescent moon sheds light enough to see the road in front of me. I am walking toward up the slow incline toward the shadowed mountains. A housing development is supposed to be built on this road. There are signs that read Lot 11, Lot 12, Lot 15, but for now the lots are empty and dark.
The foothills of the mountains in front of me are lit by the moon, but this stripe slopes away from the light so that I can make out none of it. Who knows what could be hiding in there. The hills are unknown and wild.
I stop. Fear grips my chest like a straight jacket. A pack of coyotes trot perniciously along the road toward me. The jaws of a coyote can crush through bone. The leader spots me and pauses.
He eyes me. Their ears prick up and their fur stands at attention. In their eyes is my flesh, my death. I could die here tonight.
Beads of sweat pierce through the skin on my neck, back, and legs and feel like needles. My blood is a thousand frozen peas pumping painfully through my veins. My knees quake. Hoping to get into a stronger, more prepared stance, I shift my weight.
Bang! That slightest movement, that little bit of uncontrollable timidity on my part is enough to set them off. They gallop toward me like a pack of horses, charging for my flesh. Their cackles and growls sound like a band of demons thirsty for more of me. I have no time to run. The leader charges toward me. His pack makes to surround me. He jumps for me, for my throat, and I bring my arms up to defend myself.
Bang! And just as quickly they vanish and I wake from my daydream. They were never real.
It was just my imagination, just my imagination. I tell myself that again and again. It’s not real.
There is nothing here that can hurt you. I pray. God I trust you. You will defend me.
But I am left rigid and afraid. In front of me is a thick stripe of black, of complete, impenetrable darkness. Who knows what could be hiding in that black strip. It is unknown, and it is the unknown that taunts me. That stripe is causing my imagination to cave in on itself in fear.
But it is not my enemy. It is my training.
To be continued…
Read PART 2, Something Larger than Numbers.
Read PART 4, The Call that Must Be Answered, The Challenge.
