Purgatory

You are a visitor.

The bodies you travel through are as fluid to you as a river.

We all watch you wade through the river, legs striding through water, knees lifting above the surface- it is almost effortless.

Clothes wet and soiled and tainted with river muck you haul yourself up onto the grass and dirt, elbows poking out, shoulders and head slumped.

You lift yourself onto land, wring the wet from your shirt, and without turning back to see the river you have crossed, you continue on to the next.

I imagine your existence as a purgatory of sliding in and out of rivers. Your knees must be tired by now, your back must be aching, your mind must have emptied of all thought other than "when will this be over?".

And yet, stuck in your purgatory, on you leap, on you dive, on you trudge, your skin soggy and chafed from the waters.

Sometimes they are piercing cold, sometimes they are warm and serene. Regardless of the pleasant waters, or lack thereof, you do not stop.

The travel through them does not take long.

You leave disaster in your wake, your toes plucking up earth deep beneath the surface where fish have lived for years without disturbance.

All of this is unbeknownst to you. The only thing that is certain is that up ahead there is another river.

Up ahead you are to cross another river.

Nothing else matters.