#118 Baptism

by Mickey Hunt

The cavern and its water reflection display perfect symmetry.

I look up from this digital image to glare from the hospital window. Mt. Hood, immobile, overwhelms the eastern horizon. My mom on the bed moans from a deepening vacancy—she hasn’t eaten for a week, her advance directive enforced against my wishes.

What’s below the surface? I’m now immersed in the cavern’s pool, an ambient 54 degrees F. But reflection is illusion. Image is merely likeness. With death, do we as images and reflections of the Creator finally ascend into reality?

The small hospital room fills with people.

“Okay,” the nurse says. “They’re ready to transport your mother to hospice. Will you support her head while we lift her onto the gurney?”

“You don’t understand what’s going on,” I say coldly. They will kill her by dehydration.

I’m frozen in place, icy water dripping down.