The Easiest Choice Occurs When There Is No Choice.

It was at her choice to come back. A hope and a prayer. The journey back to a home, that had changed over the years, had started with a twinkle in the eye. Over the months, what started as a reflex, became a seed that grew to have a mind and heart of its own. This was another chance to get it right, to face the burdens and hurdles that had previously been a challenge and make them opportunities. What would come to pass was yet to be discovered.

The time on this voyage had been indulgent. Meals were provided, and entertainment was simple. Simplicity made this existence possible. Thoughts were simple and just being, was enough. It was enjoyable to wear nothing on her but herself. The warmth, quiet, safety and other concerns were adequate. Some ambient noise made it into the inner enclaves of the submerged chamber. She had acclimatized to the regular drumbeat of the machinery that provided the oxygen needed for breathing. It became unnoticed, like a grandfather clock’s hourly chimes or the scent of perfume. People spend a lifetime seeking such equanimity.

Nonetheless, she had experienced her share of stresses that would cause agitation and the heart rate to go up. Being holed up in the hyperbaric chambers was a necessity. The daily routines took over each day. The months passed. She could feel the changes from being in a restricted space. Regular movements were restrictive. Pressure changes often stimulated movement, but there was little room to do what was optimal. What was possible did not require math or science, just reactive, reflexive, instinct.

On occasion, she recognized that the randomness of events, that led to her being in this submerged enclosure, had seemed portended by divine providence. Now she wondered if it had been some greater plot to ensure the continuation of slaves. In truth, this moment of her existence could not be considered slavery, it just was.

She had made a lifetime contract with the universe. The contract was conceived and validated in a fleeting experience. Directly or indirectly she was here as the product of a mechanical reflex. If there was any choice, it was the easiest choice - it happens when there is no choice. It really did not matter if she had asked for this or if had it been imposed on her. It did not matter if her being here was a result of self-gratifying lust or the passion to fulfill the ideal of love. She was here now, and her time was almost up. Her only goal at the moment was to grow muscles and get strong. Soon, she would have to surface from this vessel.

She was a living alchemy experiment. She was coming back, a new person. Recreated from the bits and pieces of the past by the fire in her belly, clay foundations from the Earth that made her body, and the salt water in her blood, perhaps she would be able to change the iron within, into gold.

She was a pharmakon, that could be at the same time, a curing remedy or a poison. She was the rose that possesses medicinal qualities to protect the brain from stress and age-related conditions and also holds poisonous seeds and thorns. The distilled waters around her held the perfumes and oils to increase mental agility, clear memory and reduce stress. They were needed to turn a poison into a cure, gods into Satan or vice versa. She was to reduce the impact of the poison that often comes with each era.

There is talk of an Elixir contained in the Lapis lazuli begging bowl of the Radiant Buddha, the master of healing, that could cure the fiery poison of the snake that guards the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. She was to be the fruit that was to be made into an elixir. She was to carry the messages from the Trees of Knowledge and Wisdom and cause the pendulum to swing. She was to defy what was once considered the limits of possibility.

As the final days progressed, there was a slow change in pressure.The space was cramped and exercise was limited to kicking out and punching the chamber, like a chick in the egg she thought. It tired her and she slept more. Then the time had come. The pressure had increased and activated her integrated circuitry computing system's program,. It was time to be thrown overboard. She would either sink or swim, shine or be shadowed.

She entered into the labyrinth. The portal opened. She heard screams. A gush of water pushed her out of the vessel. She left the chamber, and her abode in the warm salt water ocean where she had lived, submerged for almost 10 months. This was the moment, Man overboard, well in this case, a female infant.

She felt the cool air. She knew she held the stuff of stars. She carried her own light. She was a shooting star thrown into the ocean of air in the terrestrial world where waves of light and sound pounded within and around her.

She felt separation stress. An object was inserted into her nose and mouth. Her heels were slapped. She cried and heard her own voice.

Then she forgot all that was before, including the forces that had joined together to make her, and her purpose. Her eyes opened. Her head was cradled on her mother’s soft breast. She latched onto the fountain of youth. She was a ripening fruit. Her life would be used to distill an elixir, that would improve with age, and perhaps do all that it was portended to do to make the world a better place.