Foggy Waters

Duck, duck…Swan

Day in and day out, Duck was nicknamed that because she would always waddle slowly doing her normal routine of life i.e., waking up, school, back home, homework, and other activities around the house. She never showed a zeal for life.

She was a PK (Preacher's Kid). They lived at 666 Swamp Lane, beside the still waters of Grover Lake. They were not a social family outside of the church because her parents were always involved with the ministry. So, Duck was in church every Sunday, every Wednesday Bible study, and prayer meetings. She would sit tirelessly listening to sermons, and heard her parents’ teachings. But she still looked at her life as being humdrum and sad. She was simply bored with herself. She had been talked to, preached at so much, that she had grown numb.

Duck lived inside of her own bubble. She felt she did not receive the attention, guidance, and rearing she really wanted and needed. There were never any expectations of her, other than knowing the difference between good and evil. But with such a structured, routine, and predictable life, how was she to know how to differentiate between the two. After all, if it wasn’t for a daily hug, Duck would receive, she didn’t think she was loved.

She was a senior in high school. A young man showed interest in her, but they had to sneak around because her parents would not let him come over to the house. Needless to say, that she sought affection from him anytime and anywhere she could receive it because of her parents’ strict rules. He would try to talk with her, but being that their time was so limited she sought his attention and affection far more than any conversation. Being that she was showering him solely with physical attention and no quality conversation she missed a real opportunity to feel the love he was trying to show. He always wanted to talk. He would say some of the same things her parents would say? But words became unimportant to her. The talk was cheap. She only wanted to give out what she had been shown, hugs and affection. This man was young, but he was mature for his age. He really wanted to get to know her, talk to her, go slow. But unfortunately, Duck did not seize the moment. So, the young man asked another girl to the prom. This really devastated her even more than life itself. She grew bitter, resentful, and angry inside. The only words that played in her mind were, "This too shall pass.” These were the sentiments her parents provided for consoling weeping or disheartened parishioners. And, now she was one of them.

She went home. She didn’t do any of her chores. Nothing routine was about this evening. At dusk, she went out to Grover Lake and took a dive. She swam far away to where her home wasn’t in sight. She waded in the lake for a while and entertained all the hurt she encountered from the young man’s decision to invite someone else to the prom. She entertained negative thoughts of how she has to sit in church constantly. Any and everything negative she could think of surfaced to the forefront of her brain. When she returned home, she was not the same. She was mean and evil; rebellious and cantankerous; and revengeful and unmanageable. She had become the proverbial ugly Duckling.

People who had ever teased her, or bullied her, suddenly experienced weird accidents. Other classmates became ill, and the young man’s prom date hair mysteriously turned a different color. She was too humiliated to go with him to the prom so she stood him up. Strange mysterious coincidences started to surface almost like a daily ritual. Duck’s behavior and these strange phenomena continued for the remaining of the year.

Once she hit the maturity age of 18, she decided to venture out on her own. Totally unaware of the dangers she would face because she was so unprepared to deal with the real world and its woes. She leaves home leaving a note for her parents to find a day later. Duck left with the intent to never return, back to that home, that family, and that life. She set out on a destination that only God knew where it was going to end. Day in and day out, night after night, taking peddling jobs, here and there, with nowhere stable to lay her head she stumbled upon an alley not too far from the street her last cash n' carry job was located. It appeared to be calm, without a lot of activity going on around it, so she felt safe enough to curl up beside a dumpster. It was adjacent to a busy restaurant on a good side of town, and the restaurant was regularly frequented. It wasn't the best lit alley but at least it was quiet so she felt safe enough to rest; just until morning, and then she would move on.

Right before curling up along this lonely, dim-lit street, she found herself starring and gazing into the heavens asking where she can find love. She just could not grasp that she had no one to love, after all, she was attractive on the outside, but her heart and personality were pretty ugly. (The true beauty of a person is on the inside). She was totally unaware that the one true love was with who she was looking up to asking the question. Soon as she settled down for the night attempting to sleep, terrible rustling sounds came from behind the garbage cans, the side of the walls of the dumpster, and from the cracks in the sidewalk. Duck set up! She looks around from side to side with her heart racing frantically, her eyes bulging and expanded as wide as her eyelids extended. Her mouth opened with a slow salivation, tears welling in her eyes, and her hands trembling with perspiration and fear. She was trying to figure out what the noises were. Then without any more anticipation; rodents, opossums, raccoons, and the like came out of the woodwork and walked toward her-creeping with ease, being cautious because they did not know what her next move would be. Shocked, bewildered, and paralyzed Duck could not move. The critters grew closer and closer to her because she smelled similar to the trash escalating from the dumpsters she chose to lay beside instead of the warmth of her own bed at home. "AWWWW, GET OUT, GO AWAY!" She screamed as loud as she could, as she was fanning them away with her hands, but it was no use. They pounced right in her very space. They hissed, spit, and arched their backs at her as they steadily grew next to her. She tried to kick at them to scare them out of the way, but they continued to come closer and closer and began nipping at her legs, her ankles, and feet ripping holes in her pants and even pulling at her shoes and managed to untie her shoelaces. Then, as if things could not get any worse, bats encircled her head coming close enough to her where she could actually see their beaming green eyes and fanged teeth. Oh, their sound. They were screeching with a higher note than that of a soprano, an eighth octave perhaps. They flew into her hair scratching her scalp with their talons. The sound was so piercing that Duck covered her ears and closed her eyes to protect her senses from being damaged. She closed her eyes so tight she could feel the veins in her head tightening up and possibly protruding. She had never experienced a migraine before but it had to feel similar to the pain she was encountering.

While in a fetal position, and still holding her hands over her ears, with her eyes tightly closed, she was totally unaware that there was a man wrapped in layers of clothes hovering over her casting a shadow. The sounds of the pest had lower into a whisper, and then totally stopped. She felt comfortable enough to open her eyes. She had connected to the still of the night once again. She began to raise her head and sit up. As she attempted to sit in an upright position her head bumped into the knees of a homeless man, well at least she thought He* was homeless. His face was unshaven, His appearance wasn’t kept up and He was very rugged-looking. His clothes were tattered and torn. He slid down the wall of the dumpster till He met the ground and began talking to her. He reassured her that she was safe with Him. She told Him how she ended up there. As He began to talk of His presence there, this time, she listened. She did not miss another opportunity to talk. He extended his arm reaching to hug her. This time the actions backed up what was being said to her. It dawned on her, right then and there, that she had missed what her parents had been trying to say. She realized she was loved all along. She had developed her own thoughts and created doubts in her own mind.

He encouraged her to fall asleep and offered His legs as her pillow to rest her head. She did without hesitation because her head was still hurting from the scratches the bats had left. He carried her off to an abandoned building with boarded windows-somewhere safer than lying by the dumpster. He swaddled her up with some dingy off-white towels, cloths, and rags that He found to keep her warm. When she woke up and looked around at the walls, it was painted in an awful shade of green-which resembled the color of her vomit that happened as soon as she realized the error of her ways, how she looked, how she smelled, and the lowliness of her stature. She started to think of her father’s Prodigal Son sermon. She slowly became paralyzed with discontentment and fear. Looking up, gazing at the ceiling, she asked, "What have I done?" Again, not realizing that each time she looked toward the heavens that’s where her true answers were. That is where they existed all the time. She started to remind herself of her parents always telling her, "Look toward the hills from where your help comes from" but she never put it into action, till now. "OH (as her voice gets louder than a whisper) It's God! God lives high as the hills! It is He who conquers heaven and earth. He loves me in spite of myself and what I have done. This is why I keep looking up. God is my answer and true love!" Feeling better and a bit stronger from her internal revelation she bargains with God (as we all do when we are faced with troubles, trials, and dangers) "Lord if you get me out of this, I will serve you the rest of my life." She sits whispering this to herself over and over. She talked with God and realized that she has to listen with attentive ears, and eyes, and understand that only people who love her [like God does] will show her genuine true love. It was all becoming crystal clear now as a little smirk came on her face and a sense of peace encamped her. She looked to her right, and just as she had done leaving her parents’ home, she saw a letter lying there. She opens it and it reads, “Return to Grover Lake. Swim out until your house is not in sight. Wade in the water for a while then return home.” She was baffled. This is exactly what she had done to get in this situation. But, without further debating with herself, she did exactly what the note stated.

She returned to Grover Lake. She swam out until her house was not in sight. She waded in the water for a while and swam back. But this time when she stepped out of the water, she felt relieved, revived, redeemed. She walked into the house drenched wet and her parents did what? Yes. Hugged her. Her mother exclaimed, “Oh my baby you look like a Swan!” The dingy white cloths that were originally attached to her were a gleaming and sparkling white. Swan embraced her parents. She finally understood the meaning of the daily hugs were affection of true love, once she combined it with all the teachings. She realized that the stranger who rescued her from the dumpsters and the pest was God. He had rescued her during her darkest hours. And, “This too shall pass,” she fully understood. Everything was coming crystal clear now. And from that day forward Duck was called, Swan. A beautifully poised creature inside and out. She had a newfound love for her parents, the church, her home, her peers, and her classmates. Swan dried off and got into the comfort of her own bed.

She applied to college and after getting registered and settled in, there was a forum where the freshmen students were welcomed. She happened to be standing beside a young man who was a sophomore. He stated his name. She said hers. Then she said, “But you can call me, ‘Swan." Then she asked, "You don’t recognize me, do you?”

“No. Should I?”

I’m Duck, the girl that used to live near Grover Lake? My father was a preacher?”

“What? Are you serious? No. I didn’t recognize you. You are beautiful. Well, you were pretty then too, but something is really beautiful about you now.”

“Yes. Would you like to go somewhere and talk?”

“Yes. Definitely. And I know something has really changed about you now because talking was furthest from your mind back then.

They continued to date and she eventually brought him home to meet her parents.

Moral of the story: Do not be quick to judge a person by their outside appearance and/or behavior. You never know what they are using as a defense mechanism to cope with their own demons. Give them time to transition, and get washed up. A beautiful person can (and oftentimes will) emerge.