Surviving the Climb

My arm cut through the chilling air until it hovered over my head, then I swiftly swung the pick down past my face and hard into the ice. I flinched when the ice split open. I keep expecting to have the ground crack and to be attacked by millions of shards of glass. The attack never comes though, and as I pull myself to the next step along this steep trail, My mind can’t help but to interrupt the following program with a sequence of the ice falling away and our team being swept into a valley of broken shards of ice. The chilling visions of death have become an unwelcome pastime. At times, when my breath isn’t steady, they become too vivid. The ice reflects the sun too much, the sky too bright, the grotesque details of skin and torn fabric are too small. Every fiber, every thread too blatant, too obvious, their wrinkles too profound, their corpses fell too perfectly. My breath, I notice now, isn’t steady.

Suddenly, a stream of sweat shivers down my spine startling me. I jump as if to rush away from whatever twisted thought I had, in which my two feet land awkwardly on the steep uneven ice. Almost slipping I drag my arms in front of me, one gripping the rope and the other on the lookout for the ground. My dad, who is behind me, tries to rush quickly to my side as the teammates brace for my weight to pull on the rope.

“Woooah, Woah,” He reaches out with his arms stretched out, prepared for my fall. But I manage to grind my boots against the ground, keeping me upright.

“You okay? You Good? That almost gotcha. You steady?” He says as he surveys my equipment and posture. I can’t see what face he’s making but, I can tell his heart dropped. With my footing in place, I decided on stabilizing my breath. In. “Yea, yea i’m good, i guess i just spooked myself” Out.

“Okay good. Let’s keep going, we’ll talk at camp” We readjusted and everyone fixed their eyes to the top of our next peak. We all kept marching forward, and I switched my thinking to more hopeful things, more mindless things. The next peak would be our last, there is good stable ground we are hoping will be good enough to rest on. Somewhere to shelter and weather out the coming cold. Now, the chilling gusts are falling on us like a pile of stakes. Each lands its blow hard and brutal. With each breeze passing by, the flames of the roaring wind drill into your skin roasting you from the marrow of your bone to the tenderness of your flesh. Skin likes to pretend its many layers are useful, but many in numbers do not always win. Especially not against the cold. No matter how many layers of clothing, the continued flames of the chilling fire burn the tips of my toes to the crown of my head. Steady steady, your breath is coming undone Jordan. Be careful, remember In. Out. In. Out. Inhale. Exhale. Rope. Boot. Rope. Boot. Inhale. Exhale. In. Out.

Think about the camp, think about the camp. Don’t think about the cold, think about hot chocolate. Think about how the blue mug feels, it's smooth and it gives a subtle warmth to my hands. In. Warmth that feels like my hands are wrapped in blankets. Out. Inhale. Think about the creamy chocolate crawling to your lips. Exhale. In. The premature kiss of a hidden marshmallow, and warmth of the coco falling through your body and settling into your stomach. Out.

A blasted gust of wind, bringing howling dogs, dashed through the peaks and rained hell on our group. Without warning the wind blew away all my fantasies of comfort and warmth, and left behind soon to be corpses hunched back over the mountain side crawling around like a bunch of helpless ants.

Ahead of us is nothing but an endless sheet of snow, ice, and rock. When I first gazed upon the frigid landscape I was mesmerized by the vast beauty of it. It was so grand, so elegant, and so beautifully perfect. Not a speck of snow out of place or intrusive rock obstructing the view of the magnificent and conquering Mount Everest. Now, several days later, despite its perfection, the landscape seems entrapping in its infinite scale. Not a trace of humanity in site, No hints of the trail to the top of the world. It is vast and beautiful, but its grandness becomes a cage. A maze. A never ending trail to the top of the world, no marker to measure against your progress. No sign marking how much left, no trail of breadcrumbs to follow. Just the endless march the faith in going forward. I cannot see the top of Everest, all I see is a suffocatingly uniform beauty all around me. With the scenery changing and progress moving every so slowly.

Everyone’s steps no longer have the energy and purpose we had at the start of this march. I think we are all now grasping the rope and pulling our legs through the snow. Rope, Boot, Rope, Boot, In, Out, In Out. My heart all of sudden starts picking up the ever sudden pace, trying to race me through my thoughts. As I try to synchronize my breath and the mourning, howling wind.

I just can’t take this COLD!! It is SUFFOCATING! With every breath I take it is like swallowing a Demon of Ice. The air expands its sharp claws as it slides down my throat, like firemen slide down a pole. Tearing the flesh of my throat with a chill striking my chest, as the Demon of Ice claws through my lungs and begins a transformation to become one with my breath. The silhouette of its arms splits into thin slivers of themselves, with the goal to wind themselves around the branches of my lungs and sear them through. As the body of the foul Demon dancing in gleeful skips, sends ripples of chills throughout my chest.

INHALE, there is a piercing strike to my chest, In which the most unpleasant wave of nausea came to engulf me. My eyelids fell in what felt like an hour long blink. They came to a close and fluttered open.

I am standing in a halfway step forward, when I see an everloving bottomless, black hole inches from me. Before I could command my foot to stop, my leg drops into the hole. Missing a step.

My body follows as I spin like a pinwheel into the endless darkness, falling into what I fear is death. I leave an endless world of White and Grey, and enter the eternal land of Black. My heart chases away all the ice from my chest as it begins to beat in a desperate, panicked rhythm.

It is then when I howl with the wind “WHY?! WHY DID I THINK I COULD EVER MAKE THIS CLIMB?” Inhale. “WHAT SPARKED THIS INGENIOUS IDEA OF CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN TO DIE?” EXhale.

Suddenly the ground formed beneath me giving way to a snowy meadow blooming with corpses. And although it seemed like I was falling through the meadow with nothing to land on, I could see glimpses of the buried corpses of those who came before me. All frozen forever still in their most agonizing and immortalizing moments of their life. I saw the ragged face of a man burned by the Everest snow, ice crawling and expanding through his agonizing face. Leaving trails of pink and red muscle. The wrinkles carrying the pressure of his pain too defined, too perfect. I saw various other glimpses of limbs and bodys being weathered away by ice and snow.

They who also set out with wonder and hope to stand on the top of the world, those who were older and wiser than a 13 year old idiot. How could I let myself believe I could ever survive such hardships when so many fell and continue to fall? How could I let myself believe I’m special enough to survive? Cold splitting individual tears form sharp little knives as they travel through my brow and plow through my forehead. I hear a pathetic, wailing scream cut through the silence and send my fingers to my face to search what had made the incisions on my face.

And as I continue to fall through the icy graveyard, until I land hard and unexpectedly on a familiar carpet. All the wind knocked out of me I lay curled in a ball, whimpering. It takes me a while to recognize there are two other whimperings and mumblings in another room. Which is when I raised my head.

To my utter shock, I was partially back in my house. My family’s House, It- it was our house. I rise from fetal position and to my hands and knees and start to stand. Around me it seems like I am in some apocalyptic version of my room. On my left side there’s My door, my lamp, and my closet. Leading right up to my bed, behind me, and partially buried in snow. In fact the entire right side of my room is buried in snow. It isn’t deadly cold, finally, but my nightstand, my desk, and my various miscellaneous clothes were all buried in various degrees of snow.

Once I am standing steady, I make my way hastily to the other room. Why am I here? Wasn’t I somewhere else? Why does this feel wrong? I think I’m going a bit crazy. Why am I here? I fall through the door and I enter the Living room that seems relatively normal, and it is featuring my parents. Did my door ever lead into the living room?

“I CAN’T LIVE like this! WE CAN’T live like this!” A strong breeze blows in from nonexistent windows. It seems like my parents are fighting, and I once again run to a corner to disappear in. Coward.

“Anne we are doing just fine, Ther-”

“FINE?! Comn Paul be honest, YOU’RE doing fine. Every once in a while you go off for days to do whatever hippie shit you do in the mountains. You climb. You learn. You survive. And you come back home just to put your feet up and call it a day’s work!”

“What?! What are you saying? Don’t say that-” My father reaches his hands up to the side of his head in exacerbation.

“Oh no it’s all too true Paul, and you know who you leave with your kid? You leave me here. You leave me here to ‘hold down the fort’” She uses this nasally voice and swings her hands through the air “Well I can’t hold it down anymore! You are no help, We stayed together to raise this family together, but I’m doing everything?! I can’t! I love you but, you were better off, a deadbeat dad.” My father flinches. He always seemed to want to run away from this house. He always seemed like he wanted to disappear from whatever my mother had to say.

He stood his ground though and he tried to steady his hands as if they were trying to hush her. “Anne, I don’t think I’m cut out for this sort of life, you know? Maybe,” Inhale.”I should just leave.” Exhale. “You’re right, I’m a lousy husband, and you know I love both you and Jordan but I should leave” The wind started to howl again, blowing in stronger than before. My mom just stood there, she didn’t need words to convey she was disgusted and in pain. Her head was lowered, her shoulders raised, and hands in a tense standstill. She was searching, searching for answers to all her questions but I think she knew at that moment she would never get any appreciated answers.

Inhale. “Fine, get the fuck out then” Exhale. I think the world started trembling, I think I started screaming. The snow started pouring in, freezing this burning moment into me.

AHHHHOW! OWW! My chest, my chest I can’t breathe, I just can’t find it in me to breathe. Why did I come to this stupid mountain?! AHHHOW, ow.

The snow keeps coming in until I start falling through the floor again. I keep scratching out my chest trying to get whatever lump is in my throat out. Why? I don’t think I'll get any satisfying answers either. So, instead I cry as my tears gather in ballon shaped pools. The more I cried the more my descent slowed. I hang from my sadness as we come to a stop, and they crash through me. Drenching me, and readjusting my attention to the people in the room.

“Are you certain you want to do this son? It’ll be hard, and you’ll have to start from now, and climb a mountain or two before it.” I’m standing behind the couch we were sitting in, Positioned to see both my smiling face and your endearing concerned one.

“I am ready for everything dad, don’t worry. I just want to get on top of that mountain!” I was hanging on his every word, pftha! I’m such a joke.

He just chuckles and takes me in to a big hug and says “Alright, well we’d better get working.”

I just collapse to my knees as the memory fades away. What was I thinking dragging my dad into this? Why am I looking at all this, for?

I’m buckling under the pressure of the mountain, soon I found myself facing the never ending wits of a snowstorm. The cold is burning through me. Where’s my breath now? I look at my hands, as they tremble, the wind starts blowing away all the layers of my skin. They erode away like layers of wax one by one they burn away. Not even leaving behind muscle.

The winter wind burns me away. It burns me away until I can only continue stumbling around as an idiot skeleton. I stumble and stumble until the remaining frozen tender flesh on my bones feels out sprouts of grass underfoot. Which seems the remaining snow has melted and bled off the edge of an invisible ledge. Creating a bitter mossy cliff, with a distressing orange light shining on the valley.

But there was a chilling scene out in front of me.

A black monstrous creature was on the edge of the cliff, digging its claws in a Tigress’ neck. Its limb was a thin pedestal, whose only purpose was to carry such a ferocious claw. The blood only made the black talons menacingly darker. It was littered with uneven, ruffled feathers, with grotesquely large wings hiding away most of its body. However, peeping out from it’s feathered shield was a nauseating large, thick neck. Sticking out in an unnatural position and had a huge tusk like beak pointing downwards. There was no doubt it was a beak used for gutting.

The tiger was swinging and trying to desperately get a last blow in. Although her powerful body, still engaged in the prospect of turning this oversized black chicken into food. Her head was limp and the eyes were aware of the unknown, bleak immediate future.

Then, the Black creature let the tiger drop off the side of the cliff.

To my horror, the creature unfurled its ungodly wings and raised its head high eyes fixated on me. A horrific sight that made me hastily back off a cliff. Why did I have to climb this mountain? Why is nature dead set on me meeting my doom while falling?!

There is a plunge my heart takes when it falls, its something that I don’t enjoy but I do appreciate it. It is one of the only warnings life offers. I am scared of death. When I started, I was always scared, but I kept marching. Although there were no certain signs that I would survive, get to the top, or make it down to the bottom. When my parents separated, I was scared and I was hurt. There was no warning, nothing that assured me “everything would turn out okay”. I fear my parents because I came to realize that maybe there isn’t anything that they could do to assure me they are good and will always make the best decisions. I fear that I don’t trust them, and that they hate me for how I keep them from living. But now, as I’m falling, I think how even if there was nothing that made my journey on top of the highest of mountains. I still got there, and my dad and mom are still here with me. Who’s to say they won’t stay? And who’s to say they won’t leave? Better if I just keep marching forward.

Inhale. I glanced up to see the creature had quickly leaped down to embrace me with its claws, and I braced for the inevitable brutal tear of my regenerated flesh. Exhale. However, the talons of the bird were surprisingly gentle.

When I gazed beyond the talons of the bird, I saw a sky mixing and bleeding various bright colors. All socializing together in a way melting crayons would. Uneven and chaotic, the colors began to cut away from the sky and flew to various other parts of the sky. In what was at first only a few at a time, but soon the more I flew closer to the sky, the more the sky quickened in place. Until they were all jumbling and shuffling around together at once.

Finally, the sky became what had taunted my heart to take a daring climb. It was the mural, now a mosaic, upheld against the sky. It begged, pleading me to come into its embrace promising me the chance to stand above my world and on top of the sky.

And how could I say no?

In. Out. Inhale. Exhale. I steady my breath and close my eyes. Which is when the rush of the cold shocks me and I realize I am laying down in what seems like our camp, with my dad beside me. He fumbles around when he realizes I've come to. Inhale. Exhale. I’ll get to the top of this mountain.

No matter what, I’ll reach the highest peak in the World and stand on top it.