Top of the World

I didn’t mean to die.

Not really.

Not entirely.

I only meant to live.

The woods sang their daily song as I trailed a lazy hand over rich, leafy greens. Rough, hallowed logs. Damp, fertile soil. The sun streamed lazily through the canopy above, creating curtains of hazy light along my trodden path.

I was in search, you see, for the perfect tree to climb. For if you found the right spot, the world opened wide, a moving and breathing and perfect organism dying to be drawn. Sketched. Painted.

I only had to find the right tree.

I kept my notebook, that perfect little black book, hugged tightly to my side. It’s edges wrinkled with use. The leather worn in all the right places. Black ink smeared the once crisp cream pages with doodles and verses and random thoughts. But it was the full page drawings that truly deserved praise, for they were the sights that set my soul of fire. Ignited a desire in me to create, create, create. To never cease. Never succumb to the daily demands the world, that beautiful and vivacious world, so direly pressed upon people.

Only it wasn’t the world that demanded. Not in its natural sense. It was who inhabited its space.

Humans. People.

I breathed in the crisp clean air, certain I was going to live and die in that wonderous wood. And that is when I saw it. The perfect tree.

Large and demanding, it took up the entirety of my vision. Its trunk a masterpiece of twining bark in a musical symphony of color and life and beauty. Up, up, up until it fanned out in an arching array of greenery, illuminated by the sun beyond.

Bet you twenty-thousand bucks you can’t climb to the top, Zephyr nagged beside me.

Watch me.

I tucked that little black book into my bra, no bag to carry it for me. Up, up, up I went, one hand after another. One foothold traded for the next.

Careful! Zephyr called, his hands cupped around his mouth, his voice ringing out in the silence of those woods.

As I reached a row of limbs, sturdy and thick and covered in green, I breathed in. How invigorating it was to be here, at this moment, when seconds ago I had only dreamed of this. I took it in. Nestled against the trees trunk to sketch, doodle, capture this moment in time. Because as soon as I moved on, my sights would be on the next stage. The next phase. I needed to feel it. Breathe it. Enjoy it.

I tucked that little black book back in my shirt and carried on. My hands scraping against the rough bark, my lungs singing with the loamy air. This was what I craved, what I lived for.

You’ve gone far enough! Zephyr called. But he was wrong. I needed to go higher.

You said the top! I couldn’t hear it, but I imagined Zephyr’s chuckle. The shake of his shoulders. The dimples in his cheeks.

So I kept going.

Up.

Up.

Up.

Until the limbs began to thin, to weaken. But it didn’t matter. I was small and thin and lithe. The perfect person to make my way to the very top. To find that perfect perch among the treetops where the world opened up and set my soul of fire. I could do it. I would do it.

The higher I climbed, the more the earth fell away. No Zephyr to call me crazy. No hard packed ground to intimidate me. Just me the tree and the birds. I was free. I was living.

Laughter escaped me. Consumed me. Took me higher and higher and higher.

I was almost there.

I paused once more. Grabbed that little black book. Drew what it looked like to see the top. To know how close true freedom lie. I jotted a few words that described the feeling inside of me.

Exhilarated.

Desperate.

Terrified.

Over-joyous.

If only my mother knew. Or the girl from third period who didn’t believe me when I said I would one day sit on top of the world. How wrong she was for doubting me.

I kept going.

Higher.

Higher.

Higher.

You owe me twenty thousand dollars! I called down.

It’s yours! Come down and get it! His voice, faint and far, drifted up. Met me.

But I wasn’t done yet. A few more limbs and I was up and above and breathing and seeing and living and there.

I was there.

I nestled in, balancing among the swaying branches.

I had made it to the top of the world.

The valley sprawled out before me, shining in the afternoon light. I could hardly breath from the beauty.

Why didn’t everyone climb up here? Why didn’t everyone take the chance to reach the top?

Because they didn’t have twenty thousand dollars waiting for them on the ground, I thought to myself, a smug smile dancing across my lips.

I pulled my pen, reached for the notebook in my shirt, and fell.