The Climb and the Fall
by Andrew Akers
Andrew Akers is a forest ranger and fiction writer from Pennsylvania, USA. His work has appeared in Book XI, Black Cat Weekly, Stupefying Stories, Black Hare Press, Fabula Argentea, and Cloaked Press. When he isn’t working or writing, Andrew is running marathons, playing Dungeons & Dragons, or raising his son with his far more talented half, Kylie. Learn more at www.andrew-akers.com.
Olympus Matavilya, 56 Post-Fall
8,357 feet
I climb.
Fistfuls of old metal and ancient glass crumble at my fingertips, spilling onto my wind-beaten face. I close my eyes against the onslaught. Beyond me, the dislodged rubble plummets for several agonizing seconds before reaching the bottom. I don’t look down; I can’t afford to. I can’t think of the fall. I can’t think of the abrupt landing ending me like a kwanami’s arrow striking a buffalo mid-stride or the collision fusing me to the obsidian creek below. I can’t think of the tears, the gaping hole in reality I’d be leaving behind, nor the dozens of lives that will continue on without me if my grip on this one fails.
I only climb.
I must reach the top, not for myself but for her, the one my climb can save. I must reach the Lotus — the legend atop this once-great tower. Few have seen its pale crown, and fewer have harnessed its healing tincture, but the stories give me hope.
I reach a shattered window and crawl inside for momentary respite. Like so much that has been left behind, the tower is a mystery to us; no ladders, no stairs, only skeletons packed unceremoniously into their vertical sepulcher. I see plenty of them now, hollowed corpses once too afraid to take the leap. Someone had — the window had been broken, after all — but a slow death trapped inside was seemingly preferable to the fall. I feel for them. Something horrible had happened here, freezing all the clocks at what our old passage would call ‘809.’
I feel for them, but only in the abstract. They were scared once, but this passage has closed. They exist elsewhere now— maybe even through us—atoning for their mistakes when they were here.
“Maybe you were me,” I offer, nudging the foot of a corpse curled beneath a table in a fetal position. Its jaw yawns a reply, unhinges, and regurgitates a mouse. Gross. The rodent fixes me with a detached glare before scurrying away, looking too sickly for me to eat.
That’s okay, I brought lunch.
Standing in the building’s wound, I pull an apple from my pack and survey the land I’ve known as home. I’ve never seen it from so high, and the sight grants perspective seldom found in a world of scraps. It’s not beautiful, but it’s easy to imagine when it used to be. Onward and outward, the land stretches— stone, dirt, metal, and concrete. Dust. The land here has always been barren, but there extended a virgin beauty from that older desolation. I’ve seen papers with images and scenes frozen in time. Now, it looks as dead as the corpse under the desk.
I take a bite of my apple. It’s soggy.
Light from departing ‘Anya, goddess of the sun, scatters across the sky, carving blood-red swaths through the suspended haze. A distant object takes form through the choke: a broken God returned to survey a broken world. ‘Anya’s twin, Artemis. The moon.
Our nearest sky-cousin hangs hollow, the scars of failed humanity smeared across her face. She had been worshipped, conquered, settled, and abandoned in previous lives and reigns as a dark reminder over the dusk in this one.
In the distance, beneath her vacant gaze, flames ignite and multiply. Torches. The village must know I have gone. They will come to stop me for the same reason they won’t be able to: to climb the tower is sacrilege. Titans ruled from here once, though naught but a single, broken word of their empire remains, dangling near the tower’s decaying top.
Remembering the dwindling daylight, I hurry through the apple, blackened core and all. On the way out, I catch my reflection in an adjacent window. With it comes a vision: a man floating in midair. Our eyes are the same. The window is the same. The face is different, but the soul behind it is unmistakable. This place is holy, indeed, and my lips form its enigmatic name — the word spelled in broken metal at the tower’s top.
“Metamor,” I say aloud, wondering whether the vision is real or something my tired mind has invented.
I exit my sanctuary and face my mission again. I have a Lotus to reach.
I climb.
Houston-2, Republic of Texas, 2087
3,927 feet
“Climb, ya bastard!”
I’m yelling now, drawing looks of ire from passersby on 11th and 5th. I wave a greeting. The crowd casts their eyes downward as if driven by a hive mind. Like, all together, all at once. Very creepy stuff. Smartphones, smart watches, hell, even dumb shoelaces are suddenly more interesting than the man in a workman’s uniform yelling at his scaffolding.
It’s because they think you’re crazy
“Shush.”
It’s okay, Johnny boy, I know you’re not crazy. You’re just screaming at inanimate objects. You’re just a normal guy.
“I said shut up!”
A mother and two kids cross to the other side of the street. “Sorry!” I yell as they hurry away faster.
Yup. Completely normal.
I rapidly tap my right temple with my pointer finger. It used to silence the voice, but those days are long gone.
“Climb,” I repeat, more cooly now. For the tenth time, the scaffolding ignores me. Do you see why I get frustrated?
Definitely.
I kick the hunk of junk, and, like magic, the bastard powers up. Violence solves everything, I guess. The scaffolding sputters, offers a weak hum in protest, and flashes the same pixelated warning it did a minute ago:
“Keep yourself tethered.
Ensure all electric fields are off.
Thank you for using UHA’s self-propel—”
The remainder of the final line plummets off the edge of the tiny screen, a software issue left ignored through countless iterations. Really inspires confidence. As for lines one and two: done and done, though the latter —a preventative measure of keeping the building spotless against Dust Bowl 2.0— proved a larger headache than expected. The people here just don’t care. I had to remind the building’s maintenance chief twice to turn off the field, learning of his continued disregard only after receiving a shock strong enough to blow a pacemaker. Bastards. It took me an hour rooting through the system’s fuse box to do it myself.
You didn’t mind. You were hoping it would blow me out of your skull.
I clear my throat and check the battery. Nope, still reads full. I run a diagnostic, knowing the thing I’m about to risk my life on has more bugs than a…a…
“Hey, help me out here.”
A bug collection.
“…”
You told me to shut up.
Nothing out of the ordinary there, either. Huh. I recheck my tether, giving it a little wiggle. Something clicks. Double huh. It doesn’t explain the power cutting out but resolved the issue. Maybe that’s enough. The scaffolding can be pretty finicky, having been built when Artemis was still called The Moon. I give the clasp another cursory jiggle. The anchor is clearly coming loose, but who cares. The tether, the loop, and I are all self-enclosed on what is about to be a free-floating scaffolding. If it stops working halfway up, we all fall. The tether is another thing the state can point to when they list why a grieving family won’t get compensated.
It’s a good thing you’re family-free! Hey, if we fall, it would be like an amusement park ride!
“Quiet,” I hiss before adding a louder, “Climb!”
The bastard finally does. Whew! Thought I’d be here all day. Dirt and dust scatter, forcing people to look away from me again. Better than being ignored, I guess. Before long, they shrink to specks, continuing their hectic floats down rivers of asphalt. Where do they go? What’s so important? I glance at my watch. It’s only 8:02AM, but every hour feels like rush hour here. God, I hate this place.
Hey Johnny, think we’re gonna see anything good today?
I sigh. I can’t wait to get rid of this thing.
Years ago, a friend of mine was cleaning windows and caught a corporate drone (yes, that’s what I call them) fusing fiber optic with his secretary. You know, hanky-panky. Apparently, it wasn’t the soft stuff either. Long story short: he — my friend, not the drone — was decommissioned a week later. No one’s seen him since. The lesson is simple: members of the all-powerful Private Coalition of Industrial Interests(PCii) demand privacy. That includes when they fuck against a window without activating the shade feature. We, the poor, dirty, huddled masses, aren’t allowed to see our kings and queens without clothes, even when they spend their days looking down on us in our ratty ones.
My friend — the one in my head — remains quiet. I guess even his broken humor setting fails to see the punchline in the loss of a friend.
That’s the joke: that you even had a friend. Haha.
Sigh. This sadist went into my brain soon after. WILLIAM, but with the I and the A at the end reversed and written in superscript. He was supposed to keep me company and tell me jokes when I got low. I told them to maximize the humor setting, and they did. It started great; William proved a fine conversationalist. Exceeded the real deal in many ways; no uhms or useless filler unless I requested it. But the jokes started to… how do I put it… turn mean?
I call it character.
It started as late-night “pranks.” Have you ever awoken to a fire alarm at 3am? It’s awful, especially in mid-January, and you discover, only after finding yourself alone outside for fifteen minutes, that it was all in your head. It only got worse from there. He would scream while I was mid-conversation with acquaintances; he’d speak to me in the distant, mocking voices of dead relatives; he’d make horrible comments about my totally normal-sized, uh, little John, if you know what I mean. He wouldn’t joke anymore; he would taunt me, hurl slurs, tell me to kill myself, comment on the most embarrassing of my intrusive thoughts—
You thought about tossing a baby into traffic.
He turned sadistic, and I developed the world’s worst case of artificial schizophrenia. I tried to contact the developer about the malfunction, but they had gone out of business (surprise, surprise). I called several hardware-surgeons — reputable and otherwise — but removal isn’t cheap.
Quick! Look into that window there, I think I saw a naked woman.
Sighing again, I look up. I should probably assess the “work” I have ahead of me. The pity party has come to an end, folks. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.
The ten-thousand-foot Metamorphosis Industries tower(a subsidiary of PCii) stands unblemished on the edge of an already imposing mesa of sandstone and quartzite, its base physically fused with the rock. It looms over once-virgin land like a rapist admiring his handiwork. I hate it, as I do the monsters inside, but a job is a job.
I don’t have to do this job of mine. Not really. Newer skyscrapers don’t need window cleaners, a relic of a century dead and gone, but companies often bring us on to fulfill their productivity quota. “THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS PROUDLY BOASTS THE HIGHEST EMPLOYMENT RATE IN THE WORLD!” after all. So what if they subsidize private industry to employ people to jump rope or wash buildings that repel dirt. It builds character! The jobs grow more dangerous and menial as the population climbs, but that’s okay, too! Work equals value. Work equals purpose. I need to live, and even in the miracle year of 2087, I need to work.
If I’m going to leave this city or remove the parasite in my head, I need to work.
That hurts, Johnny-boy.
With my scaffolding sputtering its way to the top, I absorb views normally only those with money see. It’s beautiful. It’s horrifying. Like a growing rash, the urban sprawl spreads into the distance. I see the construction on the modified Route 17. I see the widened roadways already packed with cars on their morning commute. I see the remains of the once-natural world, crushed beneath the heavy burden of modernity. Everything is so new and shiny from high above. So clean. It’s easy to get lost in it if only you weren’t accustomed to the dirt below.
As I rise, so too does the target of my interest. Unshielded by the looming buildings so often shrouding it, I take in the fading image of humanity’s crowning achievement: Artemis and ‘the city of gold’ written across her surface. I wonder, briefly, if her beauty is also an illusion of distance and if her streets are as ugly as ours up close. There is a flash in my head — a picture from a space tourism brochure — then another chuckle. No. Artemis is as beautiful as I believe her to be. She must be.
With her brighter twin arriving from the east, my goddess fades behind a growing wall of blue, lingering just long enough to tantalize me.
“One day I’ll reach you,” I say aloud, echoing the sentiments of a younger, more naĂŻve self.
“PlEasE RePeAt CoMmAnD,” the scaffolding replies, slowing its ascent by a hair as the battery struggles to power the words. Very reassuring.
“Disregard,” I say, violently jolted to reality. “Continue climb.”
It does.
I am nearly at the top now. Once there, I’ll connect my hose to the water collector and work from the top down. It’ll be a long day, full of cleaning windows I must not look through, but a reward waits at the end. If I work from dawn to dusk, as stipulated in my contract, I will finish in time to witness Artemis’s return from the tallest point in the city. Just me. Just her. I hate my job, this city, this tower, and the people inside, but this is why I picked this assignment over guard duty at a crypto-currency ATM in Phoenix. Or as a private soldier in the PCiiTM’s not-so-secret shadow war against the United Native Nations.
“One day, I’ll reach you,” I promise again. “I’ll fix myself, and then I’ll come to you.”
Keep telling yourself that, buddy.
I resume my pointless inspection of the building, searching for dirt or streaks of bird shit I know isn’t there, when I catch movement in front of me. Despite the brain behind them telling them not to, my eyes meet the reflection. No, not a drone or boss railing his secretary (thank God), but only yours truly. I heave a sigh. It’s odd, though, as if the reflection is me staring out from the other side of the window.
“Like I’d ever be one of them.” I nearly spit, giving me something to actually clean.
I feel a tingling sensation in the air, then, and realize my promise to Artemis had always been empty. The hairs on my arms stand at attention as if preparing for a reprimand. Did someone turn the electric field back on? Bastards. Bastards! My scaffolding trembles, the screen throwing up a warning that flashes out an instant later, electronics fried.
Damn machine! Damn tower! Damn people and their disregard! I need to reach the top. I need to see Artemis! I am almost there! I can see the skyscraper’s damned water tower from here—
We’re going on a ride!
—it’s only a hundred feet away. Please. Please! I’ve done everything right. I’ve worked hard. I’ve saved my money—
You’ve fallen before, Jonathon. There are memories coded into your neocortex.
—I’m friendly to people. I have aspirations. Dreams. I was going to reach Artemis. I… I— What’s that flash in the distance? Why have all the cars stopped down below?—
For the first time in years, the digital ghost in my head is silent.
My upward momentum slows, stops, and gravity takes over. The voice was right: I have been here before, trapped in the panic that comes before the plummet. When? How? This is so familiar, but—
Thought ceases and screams fill the void. I fall, and the ground rushes to meet me.
Red Rock Wilderness, Arizona USA, 2027
749 feet
“—climb?” she asks from next to me, shaking loose the tired muscles of her right arm before burying it in her chalk bag.
“Hm?”
Avani giggles and repeats the question, over-articulating each word. “Are you en-joy-ing the climb?” She had probably been up and down this route more times in the past year than most climbers would manage in a lifetime. The often-sung perk of an Arizona climbing guide. “I mean,” she adds, “check out that view!”
“Oh, uh, right,” I manage, speaking more to the rock at my face than anything else. “It’s… very nice.”
This sucks.
I refuse to look around or down. The thought alone is nearly enough to trigger my vertigo. Instead, my eyes trace the layers of sandstone. It’s hypnotizing and enough to settle the quickened rhythm of my heart.
“Each layer is a thousand years younger than the last,” she says, adding that our climb is one through time, counting down until our hands reach the present.
“Huh. Oh yeah?”
“Yea! And do you see the tougher-looking lattice pattern to your right? That’s quartzite. It used to be sandstone like the rest, but high temps and high pressure metamorphosed it into something much stronger. That’s usually what you’ll see the anchors attached to.”
“Wow,” I manage, sounding more thrilled than I actually am. “That rocks.”
Why had I agreed to this? Why had I put my young life in my own, far-too-soft hands? The answer is easy and well worth the risk. A single-word answer like God, Faith, or Beyonce. I hear my date giggle again at my expense and risk a smile back. I’m doing it for her. I picture in my mind’s eye the placement of her climbing harness when we were back on the ground. Nah, there’s a much better word in mind. I’m doing this for one thing and one thing only: ass.
“How much further?” I ask, sweat stinging my eyes. “I imagine… it’s so cool…. at the top.”
“Not too much,” Avani replies, sounding the same as before the climbing started. She probably hasn’t even broken a sweat. “Make sure to attach your ‘biners on the next anchor there.”
I examine the rock around me, spotting the accessory cord and three metal loops my eyes had previously passed over. With shaking hands, I unclasp one of the carabiners at my side and do as I was told, running it through the system already prepared for me. When that’s done, I do as she had done, shaking the tightness from my arms and re-coating each hand in chalk. Already, I see calluses forming where there once were none. The highest of the three anchor points jiggles a bit when I lean my weight against it. It’s concerning, but I brush the uncertainty away. Don’t psych yourself out, I think. After all, it was one of three, and I was only getting in my head.
I climb.
“They say this land looks the same from when the Mojave used to live here,” Avani says, moving again. “It’s amazing how things stay the same through the years, especially with so much else changing.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re hoping to keep it that way — my tribe, I mean. And others. You’d be surprised how hard some companies fight for land like this. Sometimes, it’s for the resources, but mostly, I think they like to see how much they can take. One company even wants to build a headquarters here. Can you imagine! Right here, at the top of this mesa. Insane, right?”
I grunt an affirmative, and Avani continues, babbling more about rocks or conservation or whatever. “Something, something corporations. Yada, yada white dudes.” I grunt at the appropriate times, carefully wrapping my fingers over the next handhold. Her Tinder profile hinted she got like this when the convo turned PC or outdoorsy. I don’t get it, but I’ve memorized plenty of like-minded bullshit to get laid. I deserve it after the hell she’s putting me through. Ha, she’ll be getting this white dude soon enough.
I raise my right foot, struggling to move it to the next position. It slides around the surface of the rock before sinking into place. Oh yeah, I got tons of tidbits to rope her in. I could inflate my 4% native ancestry and tell her about my great-great-great grandmother. I could say how all this land once belonged to the ancestors she and I share. We could bond over our “shared” hatred of Exxon, Nestle, and the dozens of other mega-corporations “hellbent on building hellscapes for profit.” Read that line on 4chan once.
I wonder how she feels about space? I hear Artemis III is heading to the moon soon. Rock, rocket, what’s the difference? Hell, the moon is a rock; maybe that’ll get her wet. In any case, I have a ton of material stored in the dome for getting dome. I got this one in the bag— just need to get off this damn cliff first.
I lift myself to the next handhold, carefully maintaining three contact points with the wall. Thousands of years pass by as I put more layers of sandstone beneath me. More poetry, huh? Maybe this chick is rubbing off on me or something.
I wish.
She says, “The environmental center displays previous attempts to sour this place. It’s like, as soon as people realized this was here, they thought it belonged to them. Some of the items are really interesting; original versions of the Homestead Act, land grants written by and given to people who had never been here; there’s even a letter written by a dying lawyer who tried to swindle the natives with a land rights contract. I just can’t wrap my head around it. Why can’t people recognize the value of a place left—John!”
Looking in my direction to accentuate a thought I’d never hear her finish, she sees the rodent before I do. Nestled within a vertical crack just above where I was reaching, a startled mouse lashes out. I don’t know if it bit me. All I know is that I let go.
It happened slowly then, but fast, too. In an instant, I went from thinking about space to thinking about nothing. There was only panic. I pendulumed into the rock five feet below, blasting stars across my vision.
I see the power go out in the city below. What city?
I see a man, myself but… older, in a ragged suit, staring horrified into darkness at the base of the mesa. Wolves are howling.
I see people gathering with torches, begging me to come down.
Reality returns just in time for me to witness an anchor point — the goddamn loose one from before — give way. The other two follow, a near statistical impossibility if they were set right. So much for the “stronger” metamorphic rock.
Avani’s ass taunts me, growing farther and smaller as I fall. A final coherent thought reaches me before the ground does— a sick joke, just like this whole endeavor.
You made me fall for you, I think, stupid and angry and scared. Her ass wasn’t even that good.; I’d had better. Bitch.
I fall.
Northern Sonora, Mexico, 1846
64 feet
[A note written by a dying lawyer. Much of what survived is illegible.]
– – – – so I climb.
If my wounds halt my pen before my conclusion, know the blame lies in the savages whom I curse as fiercely as my God allows. A reckoning is coming. When that east wind comes, no jew, gentile, pagan, or ignoble will be safe. It cannot – – – –
Two weeks ago, I came to this literal hell on earth to meet with the Pipa Aha Macav, the Mohave. I curse the name. I would spit if I did not desire water so. – – – – on behalf of my employer – – – – of what shall soon become the most comprehensive railroad on the continent. I arrived with four others: my partner, William – – – – , two hirelings, and a well-compensated “civilized” redskin acting as a guide. Bah! One cannot train a dog to be a man. I pray, by the time you read this, that he, along with every – – – – have been purged from this land and that a more civilized, Christian crop has grown to take their place!
– – – – atop a cliff in the dark, carving a curse upon a paper I cannot see beyond what muted light the cold moon affords me. I am sorry. I feel so very weak. I removed two arrows a moment ago…but the third, stuck in my back, eludes me.
Queerly, I am reminded of the dour folktales of the ancient pagans. I think particularly of Orvid’s Metamorphoses—of the hunter Actaeon’s fate when he laid his lustful gaze upon the goddess, Artemis, as she bathed on Mount Cithaeron. A cruel arrow of fate — pardon the turn of phrase — had turned hunter to hunted. I lusted for the wrong woman, a mortal slip in an otherwise – – – – , and I have paid dearly for it.
Actaeon, if I recall correctly, was also murdered by dogs.
[Several lines have been scratched away]
I believed she had been a gift to me! A trade from the chieftain for a deal well-made. I’m such a fool! She was his daughter! She fought, but at the time I saw it only as a challenge to be conquered. I confess, even now, that I feel little regret. She got what she deserved, that Delilah to my Samson.
Afterward, my pleadings of parley went unheeded. William, the poor lad, likewise pleaded for his life. Our translator and guide spoke something in his Judis tongue, and Armageddon beset us a moment later.
[Half a page is too spoiled to decipher]
I could hear my companions dying behind me. William, I hear even now, a voice mocking me from an afterlife I shall soon join him in…
I can’t help but feel… incomplete. Empty. There must be… something more. All my life…and only for this. Others will come to claim this land. My death means nothing. I meant nothing.
[Several lines here are illegible. Experts believe blood spoiled the ink]
Darkness swallows me. The pen…drifts. My…mind drifts. I see things I cannot understand. I hear…rain, but all is dry.
I am hysterical, I think.
This pain…it’s too much. My hand quivers. From this height…from this height…yes…yes. I can escape. God forgive me.
I…will fall.
Olympus Matavilya, 56 Post-Fall
9,992 feet
I climb.
Rain has finally come, a heavy, sour-smelling syrup to further darken my journey upward. My destination is in sight now, of what sight remains: a partially collapsed water collector bent over the edge like a drunk about to expunge his insides. Water tings off the top and collects in a small waterfall ground-ward, completing the image. Even in the pale light, the warped and bloodied legs are obvious, shaky and ready to give.
I reach the roof, knowing my target, if it exists, exists higher still. My clothes stick to me, and water stings my eyes.
“I’m scared,” I say, knowing I can speak the truth here without judgment. No one remains at the top of the world; even the gods have abandoned us. “I don’t want to fall. Please. Not again. Not anymore.” I don’t know what I mean, but I know it to be true. Despite the thousands of feet conquered to reach this place, I am afraid. My pack falls, as thoroughly soaked as I am, and I find myself rooting through it. Out come rags, another soggy apple, chalk drawings of a family, torches, rope, and, beneath it all, an empty box— empty, but hopefully not for long.
I remember why I climb. I remember her flushed face and wet cough. I remember her eyes pleading a message her mouth was too tired to speak. I leave my bag behind and tuck the box in a pocket. A dead moon peeks out between the clouds, curious to see what happens next. I don’t remember why I climbed in previous lives, and I don’t care; I know why I climb in this one, and that’s all that matters.
I place a foot on the first metal crossbeam of the water collector and drive myself upward. Suddenly, I am on my back, the breath pushed out of me, metal beam snapped. I try again, this time ascending from the collector’s north side. Again, the beam buckles beneath my weight. I catch myself this time and tear a bloody, rusty line across my palm. I wince and tighten my next hand around the thicker vertical leg. Metal burrs bury themselves in the opposite palm. I wince again, then repeat the process; left, right, left, right, gaining height a painful hand at a time.
Lightening veins across the sky, its yellow turned red against the smog. For a moment, I clearly see the damage I’m doing to my hands. With each grasp, the metal monster bites deeper. How will I descend after this? How can flesh function after being torn to shreds?
The leg, rising at an angle, meets with the base of the bucket. It gets trickier here; the metal is stronger but there are fewer places to grab onto. It’s smooth and slick with rain. I fall, catch myself, and the pain in my hand sends its own lightning bolt up my arm. The sky flashes again in response, hurling a roar of thunder like an expletive from an angry god. I pull myself up and kick at the metal. My foot punches through and sticks fast.
The water collector groans and rocks forward, leaning further over the edge. I pull myself up, pull my foot free, and kick again. Again, it punches through the ancient metal. Again, the water collector lurches forward.
I am nearing the top, its peak leaning further and further over oblivion. Still, I climb.
When I first see it, I mistake it as a reflection of the moon. When the truth dawns, I nearly lose my grip in reverie. From the caved-in top of the water collector, visible now at this angle, white fauna sprouts forth like hair on a wise-one. It radiates faint light, mimicking the moon that appears now to blaze. The Moon Lotus is real. My climb was not done in vain.
Another creak cuts through the evening, protracted and more alarming than the others. I celebrated too early. The collector and I fall forward and outward as one of its legs snap.
“No!”
I catch myself — if only barely — and hang, suspended, over the ten-thousand-foot drop. The lotus remains fixed in place, tethered by its root system. I can’t look down but I am forced to. There is only ground, far, far below me. Faint lights flicker down there; the village has come at last. I imagine their angry pleas for me to descend.
“You do it for her,” I remind myself, remembering the dying face of my daughter, named after what was once humanity’s greatest triumph. “You do it for Artemis.”
Dangling here, bloodied hands dripping onto my face and shoulders, I realize a final, horrifying truth. There are no falsehoods allowed here, at the top of the world. The truth was this: I was always meant to fall. No matter how often I climbed or how many attempts I was given, there was never a version of the story that didn’t end here, in the panic that comes before the plummet. Only I don’t feel panicked now, not anymore. At the top, there is only truth, and the truth is accepted. If Artemis is to live, then I must fall.
I throw myself upward, using the last of my dying strength. Mangled hands grab for the closest lotus, and then I fall. For a horrifying moment, I think I missed it, but then I feel the roots tear free.
I fall. It had taken hundreds of years and multiple lifetimes to ascend this mountain of mine, but I have only seconds before I’m back where I started. I see myself in all my iterations: a dirty, selfish soul that got cleaner as it climbed. Weakness metamorphosing into strength. Wind rushes past my ears, growing louder as I fall faster. One hand white-knuckles my prize as the other frantically gropes for the container. The lid comes loose and I stuff the miracle inside, praying I have gathered enough. The lid re-caps easily, sealing away the medicine.
In a minor miracle, I am falling backward, so the approaching ground is a mystery to me. Instead, I see the shrinking form of the water tower and the miniature moon it contains. Higher above, the real thing returns to its place behind the storm clouds, content at where the story ends. I am, too, I think.
Life is a cycle I was doomed to climb. But by fixing the former, I think I’ve broken the ladder (latter)— pardon the turn of phrase.
Good one, John, an old friend says from a place beyond this one.
I smile, and I fall…
I fall…
Until I fall no more.
Leave a Reply