I am standing in a forest, but I can’t see the trees for the vines growing around me. Above me, below me, to all sides, the vines grow and block out the smallest glimpse I can have of the trees. The air is hot and stifling, but every now and then a breeze comes through. It smells sweet and flowery, and it lifts my sticky hair off my forehead. It shifts the vines for a second, and for that brief second I see into heaven. The vines close, cutting of the breeze, the forest, and the flowers. But the forest continues to call out to me.
But as I grow I become used to the humid air and the sight of the vines. I begin to study them. Some vines start out looking ugly, but the more I look at them the more I see the beauty in the very ugliness. There are times that I wonder if the vines twist my thinking as well, especially when I think that. But, as I grew used to the vines, so I grow used to the idea of thinking the ugly beautiful and the beautiful ugly. I rejoiced when a flower poked through the vines underneath my feet, but was entranced as a vine grew and choked it.
Soon the desire to touch one enters me. At first I toy with the idea. What if I did touch one? Would it be soft, or rough? Would it poison me by its very touch? Soon the idea becomes thought, and the thought becomes action. I touch a vine. It bends to my touch and caresses me. I shudder, because there seems to be something wrong, something evil in the vine. But it’s addictive. I stroke it again. Then I move around my little vine-room, touching every one. Soon I fondle them. I grieve over the ones that seem to ail and rejoice when they spring to life again.
But now I kneel, surrounded by vines as always. They have overgrown. I never thought they’d grow this fast. I was amazed; the more I handled them, the faster they grew. My little room is becoming smaller by the day. I kneel, my legs fastened to the ground by vines. I’m bent almost double, my wrists pinned to the ground by vines. A thick vine has wrapped around my body, up my chest, and around my mouth. There is no way to cry out. Though I try to push it away, they have become out of control. They control me. Sometimes they almost let me stand; other times I’m on the ground, struggling to call out past this vine gagging me. I almost manage to pull away, but they always bring me down again. The vine around my body thickens every day. Soon I know it will choke me, just as it choked the flower that tried to come up.
Stronger than ever the forest calls to me. I cannot get free of the vines, but the forest’s call drives me nearly mad. I thrash and kick against the vines. Nothing. Finally I lay still, a limp exhausted, sweaty heap, sobbing against the vine in my mouth. They begin to tighten again and I silently scream, knowing no one can hear my agony. Unless someone comes to rescue me, I will never be free from these vines. I can do nothing now. I am useless.
I can only wait for a Deliverer. Will no one come?