Treading Water

Ben heaved the bucket of dirty water out of the path and over the fence for what seemed like the tenth time that morning. His arms were sore and his back ached, but he knew he had a job to do and he was not going to quit until that job was done.

Ben took this same path everyday, but somehow it seemed to change with each new dawn. There had always been the fallen tree about halfway down the path, or for at least as far back as he could remember, it was always there. This puddle he was working on seemed to always be there too, even in droughts. It seemed to stay in the middle of the path, impeding his progress so that he either had to wade through it, or walk around it. Walking around the puddle proved to yield bad consequences because it seemed to Ben, that every time he walked around it, the puddle would grow in size by the next day. Other than these two obstacles, everything else along the path seemed to change daily. Leaves would change color or fall; flowers would bloom or wither. Some days would bring more changes than others, but the surroundings hardly ever stayed exactly the same.

The puddle had gotten out of hand in the last couple of weeks which is definitely not what Ben needed with all that was going on in his life. This particular morning he decided to take a bucket along and try to clear the puddle away or at least reduce its size, anything to make it a little easier to travel through or around. He started early in the morning but had hardly made a dent in it by noon. He was becoming more and more tired trying to clear the puddle and soon decided it was hopeless. Again, he reluctantly went around the puddle. Each day, bucket full by bucket full, Ben battled against the puddle with fierce determination. Yet, the puddle continued to grow. The bucket was becoming quite weak. Ben noticed the plastic sides starting to flex when only filled halfway. He noticed the water in the top would leak out through little cracks that were slowly forming within the soft plastic. The bucket was starting to give out, and with it, Ben was starting to give up.

He didn't know what to do. He entertained the idea of asking people to help him clear the puddle out of his way, but he couldn't. He couldn't ask anyone to help fix a problem they didn't have anything to do with, nor were aware of. He couldn't bring himself to ask anyone to help him with something he was embarrassed to need help with. He believed emptying the contents of a puddle should be a simple task, one he should be able to accomplish on his own, by himself.

Within the next week, as Ben's life continued in monotonous drudgery, the puddle expanded. It became a small lake, too deep to wade across and too wide to walk around. Ben picked up his frail bucket once more and filled it to the brim. It was overflowing as he lifted it out of the water. The weakened sides gave way to the cracks that had been forming and suddenly burst. The bucket collapsed in his hand, spent and useless. Ben watched in silence, shocked as the water splashed against him, down his legs, over his toes and reunited with the ocean now surrounding the island on which he stood. He was alone, surrounded, defeated. There was no hope for him now, there was nothing he could do. The end had come.  He was finally overwhelmed It was too late to seek help.