Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: River (04/10/25)
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TITLE: In An Instant | Previous Challenge Entry
By Wilma Schlegel
04/17/25 -
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I am not easily moved. Nothing threatens me, nothing surprises me. Daily, I watch the movement of the river. Its surface is ever changing, the currents forming vein-like patterns on the waters. They are vein patterns like I see in the roots of trees that grow along these banks, vein patterns like those in human hands that grasp and climb on me. They, the humans, are in awe of me. They watch the river from my secure bulk. After a time, they leave. But I stay. I will always stay.
Many times, the rains have come, and the river has risen. The currents are strong then, angry. Trees are uprooted and fall into the waters. They are washed downstream until they catch on something under the surface or something along the banks. Sometimes they wash against me, colliding and then cannot get free. The river wears them down until they have disintegrated or until they are able to flow again with the current. They are weak. Not strong like me.
There was a tree that succumbed and fell into the river recently. It smashed into me, and it was caught against me for a time. It turned, rolled, jostled in the current, its branches scraping the banks at my side as though it grasped and clawed for some kind of rescue. I knew that its end would be the same as all those before it. I do not respect what is weak.
Odd, as the current tore it away, I felt different. But, no, I will never change.
Today, the lightest, mistiest droplets of rain are falling, covering me with their negligible weight. Ha! I laugh at their attempt to weigh on me!
What is this? I feel movement, I feel imbalanced! I’m moving, floating? Falling! There’s a huge splash of waters. I caused that splash! I’m sinking deep and deeper. How could this happen? I’m solid, stronger than the water. Aren’t I?
Now, I’m not able to watch the river. I am stuck in mud, under its waters, among ordinary rocks. Nothing is acknowledging me. I’m solidly planted again but the river flows freely all over and around me, like I’m not important at all.
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Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18, NIV
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