He stepped from the raft onto the rocks that marked the shore and the foot of the mountain. He turned to his right and saw only a cliff, a dark mass that offered nothing. He turned to his left and saw a cliff, this not as consuming as to his right yet still an obstacle that seemed to only say, 'onward and upward, onward and upward'.
So he began to climb.
Over rocks and over ledges and over cliff faces and over crevices and over peaks and over ridges and over valleys and over crags and over it all he went. Sweat stung his eyes and his limbs felt like the very stone he was struggling to overcome.
He felt faint. He staggered. He was standing on a ledge, on the edge of a cliff. He looked down and saw only clouds, thin swirling clouds that hid the foot of the great mountain he was climbing. He looked up and saw the mountain continue, saw it rise and rise and rise toward a sky that was neither blue nor white nor black nor grey but just a sky, just there.
The chair was beside him and, despite the heaviness of his limbs, despite the lightness of his head, despite the distance down and the distance ahead, despite it all he was loath to sit upon that seat, upon the place he knew his wife to have been. So he continued onwards, up the mountain on hand and foot and knee. Into the clouds, into the white, on to the summit.
YOU ARE READING
Persephone
Short StoryA wife goes mad on the night of her marriage and her husband is left alone in an empty house. Filled with despair and longing, he sets out on a dream-filled voyage to find her. This text was written while listening to the first three minutes of Beet...
