A Drenching Shower

Photo Credit: Ryan Roth-Klinck

By Andrea Lingle

“Moses…must have learned such wondrous things among the thorns of the bush that they gave him the courage he needed to do what he did for the people of Israel.”
-St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, p. 187

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
Matthew 3:16

The sound of water splashing over stones erases all other sounds. You have been hovering on the edge of wakefulness for long enough to realize that the sound is getting louder. Your eyes are not open, but light is reddening the edges of your eyelids. You are curled around a down pillow, hugging it tightly. The pillowcase smells like sunshine. The fabric is thick and smooth with washing. The sound of the water has woken you. It had begun as a trickle so gentle, which you had dismissed it as a dream of distant rain. You smiled and rolled over, covering your head with the quilt against the coming morning. 

The sound of the water is roaring now. The splashing has turned into thundering: the roiling of an ocean torn by storm. 

Your eyes open. You are facing the door of your room, curled into your bed. There is light pouring over you as insistently as the water. You can feel the warmth of the light on your back. Terror grips you and you squeeze your eyes shut, burying your head in the pillow as the roaring crescendos to a howl. The water is exploding through your mind, forcing everything you have ever thought out. Nothing remains but the water and the light. You cover your head with your arms, crying out without words. Groaning under the weight of the sound. 

Tears soak through the fabric of the pillow in your arms, and you can smell the down absorbing them. The homely smell of dust and birds and sunlight give you the courage to pat one hand along the edge of the bed and down to the floor. Dry boards, cool and firm, meet your fingertips. 

Sitting up, keeping the pillow tight in your arms, you look over your shoulder toward the sound of the water. The room widens out behind you like an amphitheater. You, the door, the dresser, and the washstand are nestled into a room sized nook, but the back of the room widens and stretches into a cathedral lit from the back by an enormous rose window set high in the vaulted ceiling. Light is pouring through the window like molten copper so dense you squint and raise your hand in defense. Below the window, covering the entire back wall and glowing in the light, is a waterfall. The water falls the entire length of the wall then into a rocky pool where the floor should have been. The light has turned the entire surface of the pool into a glowing mirror which ends in plain wooden flooring about thirty feet from your bed. The edge of the water is so still, it looks solid. The violence of the waterfall’s plunging and bucking is soothed by the depth of the pool. 

Before your tears have dried, you stand, dragging the sheets off the bed as you clasp them around your shoulders. The pillow thuds to the floor, upright for a moment before toppling forward.

You bring the sheets up around your head, holding them against your ears, trying to dampen the sound of the still louder water. The light has begun to sear your eyes as you walk slowly to the edge of the pool.

At the edge of the pool is a towel. Folded neatly atop your basket.