She tripped and fell...

*

into the water, yes, but he was there with her, the intentional one whose remoteness was a form of love.

She reached for the mud of the stream-edge and seemed to close her fingers upon a grub, too soft for a human hand.

She remembered the day she'd fasted to the point of exhaustion and fallen praying onto the vision of a grub. Some creature so thin it not only didn't have a shell but didn't have any protection at all. So that even touching it seemed to hurt it. And permanently. How could things so weak be thrust into the world, things born to die, how could God allow their life as nothing but carnage? Yes but inwardly this vulnerable image had been Jesus himself, the one who had opted to be without defenses, though the most powerful being in the world, gaping with softness, inexplicable. Sheer threads of hurting hanging down. Now remembering this image, she grabbed onto the poor creature and squeezed it with a practiced selfishness.

... was pulled back onto the shore. Where all the dead bugs lay. The losers in the battles, resting and decomposing.

*