"Like A Dove"
by Matthew Aaron Lee
by Matthew Aaron Lee
A gentle breeze settled along the cliff top. The air whispered a foreboding message to all who would listen; something was amiss in the heavens. Darkness spread slowly across the moon while the clouds silently complied with this command. The puffy masses covered the orbital body as if to surround the light while bestowing upon the earth an eerie glow that would shine on the planet's inhabitants.
Atop this majestic tranquility that was the mountain, there stood a man. He observed all that transpired with an open-eyed awareness. His depression gave him an inner sight of what was happening. Or so he had come to believe.
His name is Mark Howers, and he is an accountant for a very important executive firm. Until today, that is. He was fired for a miscalculation that cost his company an estimated two million dollar investment. Unknown to his Board of Directors, the mistake was not his. The fault lay upon the hands of a higher executive who had deceivingly mislead his superiors with falsified paperwork in an attempt to transfer the blame on one lower on the corporate ladder.
It now made no difference whose mistake it was. He had been both blamed and punished for a crime that was not his. Anywhere he would apply for a job, the label, or more accurately the brand, upon his reputation would follow. He would never be hired again. His career was over before it had even truly begun.
"Nothing left to do but end this miserable excuse of a life," he muttered to no one.
Again, Mark peered down to the vast expanse of ocean that allied itself to the mountain, and again he cried when he thought of his life and all the promises that it had represented mere weeks ago.
Mark lifted his head to the heavens, and in a simultaneous tone of both prayer and curse, he yelled, "All my life I've been a God-fearing Christian! I went to church as many Sundays as I could! I never hurt anybody..."
The tears began to flow down his cheeks in short bursts and each tear explored a new path along his already tear-stained face.
"Where were you, damn you, when I really needed you?" he screamed.
But there was no reply to his plea.
He collapsed upon his knees emotionally and physically exhausted after the trials of the day. He crawled upon his hands and knees over to a nearby rock and lowered himself fully to the ground. He supported his head upon the stone and closed his eyes to the nightmare that was his reality.
Eventually, darkness came...
The dove took flight from its perch and swooped upwards to the sky that was its home. The dove was white like that of a first-fallen snow, which rests upon the morning grass. It was beautiful in every detail from the tip of its beak to the end of its softly curved tail feathers. It was perfection in and of itself. The elegance of its wingspan was similar to that of a crescent moon shining brilliantly at night. It had no equal.
The dove flew higher and higher to the heavens, attempting to gain a glory that had so far eluded it.
The dove climbed the air currents as if they were stepping stones across a pond. Even after the air became thin, it still climbed skyward. As the dove flew higher, it began to lose feathers. A few, at first, that were of no consequence, but then the dove began to lose the feathers that were its flight. Its air was no more and the dove could go no higher, for it had presumed too much.
It began to fall earthward at an alarming rate of speed even as it fought to regain its power of flight. The friction of its descent painfully singed the dove’s feathers. The dove strove to regain the balance that it had once known, but it was to no avail. Ever faster it dropped, until pain became a constant that it always felt and the pleasure of flight a memory it could no longer recall.
The ocean below swirled and rolled in the dove's vision and its lurking expanse gave the dove the incentive to try harder, rather than become lost in a world that it did not know. Time and time again, it flapped the wings upon which rest the heavy burden of survival.
At last, a miraculous current of air soared by and the dove caught upon its hope and glided. The ocean below moved angrily like a giant who had lost its prey.
The dove awkwardly found its way home and, over time, it healed and became well enough to fly. It would never be as steady or as beautiful as it had once been, but it would again sail upon the skies.
After the dove's long rest, it took flight to experience the joy of the air, but it would never fly as high again for any reason. It feared that which had hurt it and punished it.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the adversary appeared. It was the huge and powerful hawk who preyed upon others for its survival. The hawk took what it needed, for it was so powerful that none would stop it from seizing what was not its own.
It eyed the battered dove with a lust to kill that, which was weaker than it is. The hawk soared swiftly after its prey with no hint of mercy behind its eyes.
Hungrily, the hawk lunged upon the passive dove and scarred the dove's back with its claws. The dove tore free in pain towards a cloudbank and the hawk followed quickly after the dove. The hawk would torment the dove for the hawk was certain of its superiority.
The chase was painful for the dove as it sought to escape and hide from the terror that seemed to own the skies. But it was hurt too badly and the hawk always seemed so much faster. The dove knew it had no choice but to take the hawk to that which it feared.
Out of a cloudbank the dove struck like an arrow towards the unreachable heavens and the hawk followed, for it would not lose its prey.
Higher and higher the dove climbed with the hawk getting ever closer to it. Fear flowed through the dove as it continued upward and the dove was frightened because it knew it might die.
Ever closer the hawk loomed striving to end this merry chase. Slowly, as the hawk climbed, it realized how difficult it was to breathe and, as it continued, it began to lose some feathers.
The dove lowered its head and closed its eyes, and darted towards the glowing orb that was placed in the center of the heavens.
No longer as easily, the hawk followed the dove. The hawk lacked understanding for it had never been this high before! As the hawk swerved sharply to keep pace with the dove, the hawk peered directly into the sun.
Blinded and weakened, the hawk fell earthbound. It grew frightened and began to shriek. The darkness that was now the hawk's sight protected it from what was to be its final dwelling, for it had been cast out of the heavens. The ocean greedily swallowed the hawk forevermore.
The dove continued no further, it arced and opened its eyes, and flew back towards the earth. This time it was upon its own volition, and thus it didn't suffer the punishment it once had known. The Presence, which had punished the dove, had now become its savior. The dove flew home happy and content in the understanding of the One it both feared and loved....
Mark awoke to a warm summer day refreshed and somehow content. He peered down the mountain and into the ocean and shook his head as if to say "No" to that ugly alternative.
He didn't yet know what he was going to do, but he knew now that he was not going to give in to this modern society. He turned his gaze skyward and said, "Thank you, God. I really needed that!"
Again there was no reply, but out of the corner of his eye, Mark saw a battered and slightly burned white bird fly out of nowhere, across the sky, and disappear into a nearby cloud bank.
Mark smiled understandingly and started back down the mountain to continue on with his life...like a dove.
