The Gentleman from Gadara

They said I had a demon--but I knew better.
A thousand of the dirty things were screaming through my mind,
and, when I counted echoes in the caves, I heard a million.
They compelled me.
They controlled me.
They consumed me.
Until I--like a tortured breath of smoke--quivered, crying while they stormed, broke chains, snapped locks, and raged.
I was a mad, mad man in a world of shrouded, swine-smelling darkness.
Until the morning--the morning after that big storm.

It had raged all night.
They had too, dragging me along for the frenzy.
I was so tired at dawn's approach,
so collapsed and curled-up in the cave,
that I almost missed the sound of His light footsteps.
a foreign flame that kindled my last longing...

Could my little smoke escape them?
Could I run blazing through that pandemonium palisade,
a spewed chunk of tinder trembling through the sky in a feeble arc of fire?
 No pause before I sprang; no time for second guessing,
just a savage leaping toward the man ascending from the dock.
I charged, shaking and I ran straight to him...
Then I crumpled at his feet--
for they had caught me.
All awake and stomping, they were roaring in my throat.
I couldn't talk. I couldn't beg. The nasty things were crowding, stifling the scream of my so-desperate soul with their incessant, endless babbling, leaving me no voice...no voice at all.
Then, merciful Heaven above! The things were leaving!
I felt the pain of thunderous clawing as they trampled in their haste to slam the door.
In the faint and far off distance I could hear them--squealing, snorting--
as they dove off jagged cliffs that lined the shore.

Quiet.
The most beautiful nothing I'd ever felt.
Quiet.
They brought me clothes. I ate some bread.
And then we talked. No noisy interruptions.

My whole voice was mine again.
So I offered it to follow Him.
And I told my story...like I'm telling it now,
over and over in my own still voice.
What a difference a day made!