Man and Mountain
Written by Elizabeth, one of our literature writers, and edited by Abdullah, one of our guest editors!
“And as such capable hunters, all of you must know what it means to be man,” Aber waggled a teasing finger at the group of fledgling hunters gathered around him, his voice rich with mirth.
To Abidan, his father was a mighty and mythological figure. The best hunter in their village, Aber towered over most men, body lithe with tawny muscles that evidenced grand feats, fallen tigers, felled trees, and a steadfastly upright figure. Everyone respected him and no one disputed the claim that he was the most capable man in the village. Abidan felt as if it was a great privilege to be in his presence. Usually a stoic man, it was rare for him to see his father so relaxed, his obsidian eyes – usually so unceasing in their steadiness — flickered with warmth and a tentative excitement.
Abidin’s own eyes took on an exhilarated glimmer and he jumped up to his feet. “Of course!” He bent his knee as he propped a foot over a nearby rock. “You must be brave and adventurous,” he mustered a tone of grave importance and looked into the distance, gallantly miming the figure of a brave adventurer. He pretended he had all the wisdom and charisma of his father.
Outfitted in an oversized tunic and a pair of muddied leather pants, his scrawny figure seemed more comical than profound or awe-inspiring. Yet, as if his little show of pomp was a key turning in a lock, the other boys erupted into their descriptions.
“Dashing and strong,” said one.
“Take care of your wife!” said another.
And soon they had all begun to chime in.
“Smart and resourceful!”
“Eat your vegetables!”
“Fold your own clothes!”
“Hunt for the family!”
The small circle devolved into a scene of chaos. The children’s raucous shouts overlapped each other and melded themselves into one disorienting mixture of youthful vigor and feckless glee. One stray child picked up a long brambled branch and began to brandish it like a sword. Correspondingly, a neatly constructed pile of supplies nearby was strewn from their place, one water bag coming apart from the bundle it had been secured to and rolling down towards the valley at the bottom of the hill.
As if he had been waiting for a cue, Aber sprung to his feet, and within a beat and two effortlessly swift strides, he had made it across the mountain flat and was lazily toying with the nozzle of the previously precariously positioned water bag.
“Children,” his voice rang strong and deep, reverberating in the air with a tangible authority that compelled others to do as he wished. Immediately, the previously rabid children stopped in their places and returned to their previous positions. Now, the children were rapt at attention and immersed in a steady calm. Aber smiled satisfiedly.
“Good. Now, let me tell you a story.”
***
“Legend has it that, not so long ago, in this very village, there was a man without manhood.
No matter how hard he tried, he could not run as fast as the other men, notch a bow, or even swing his sword. He was scrawny, without muscle, and no woman would give him a bat of an eye. Some say that by the time he was twenty, he had yet to hunt his first cow.
All his peers laughed at him and mocked him, they asked him, ‘Are you still a boy? When are you going to be a man?’ He would laugh, but these comments deeply bothered him on the inside, and he doubled his efforts to prove them wrong.
Still, he made little progress. When he finally notched an arrow, his arrow planted itself in the dirt. When he had just caught up with the tail end of the group of runners in front of him, he tripped and fell in the dirt. When he entered his first sword fight, his opponent nicked the area right above his eyelid and his eyes watered and leaked not just with blood but also tears.
He was not a man. And he knew it.
The night of the day he had cried in the village arena, he felt incongruous in the shelter of his home. So, he got up, looked out of his window, and saw a mountain. And what a mountain!
It was a monstrous display of Mother Nature. The height of a hundred huts was not enough to reach its halfway point and its peak clipped the clouds. Ridged with barbed protrusions and steep inclines, it resembled the cragged tip of a spear. Like God had skewered the earth. No man in the village had dared to scale its slopes. People called it ‘No Man’s Land’.
He saw the mountain and said, crying again, let me prove my strength.
So, the next day he packed his bags and set out at dawn, reaching the mountain’s feet just as the sun began to lift in the sky. With it, he went up and up. Even at the bottom of the mountain, the village seemed to have receded into itself, sturdy brown huts reduced to scattered brown dots blotting a different horizon. It was then that he wondered how trivial his troubles would seem from the top, the imposing structures of his village and the strength of his peers already having been made infinitesimal in the face of the mountain’s loftiness. And his desire to reach the top intensified.
As the day faded into days, and as the nights grew increasingly cruel, he met endless challenges. Yet, he persisted. When he ran out of food, he bit his lip. And when he ran out of water, he swallowed ice. And when he could not run or walk or limp, he crawled. All foul beasts he met he did not fight but stared them in the eye, prepared to surrender his life. Miraculously, they all ignored him, scoffing at such feeble prey.
After many sunsets, and on the brink of death, one bonny frostbitten hand clawed desperately at the mountain’s final cliff. Scratching at the rock while his legs scrabbled against the harsh vertical of the mountain, his lungs burned with such friction that he thought that its inner walls had begun to peel and be perforated with the force. His heart pounded furiously, and he willed and willed for his taut muscles to grow denser, anything to push him over the peak.
In his mind, he could no longer process anything that was going on and was viewing himself in the third person. He saw his gauntness, his weakness, his doubt, and the shaky hope embodied by his splintering hands, and wondered if anyone else could see this. If anyone could see how much it hurt to come so far, so close, so gratingly near, only to feel and watch so lucidly, that the same body that took you so far failed you.
It was at this moment, that he felt a grand tempest pass. Though it was swift, it was strong and leisurely, blowing past his stick of a body with a casual regard. It buoyed him, making his tense muscles impossibly and inhumanly light. In that moment of weightlessness, he felt his body rise. And there he was, limp, tired and strewn, but across the peak. He had made it, he had finally reached the peak.
EUPHORIA. It imbued him, it made his shaking muscles convulse with joy and his frozen face split into a shining grin. The sun shone down into his eyes and he felt limitless. But before he could process his feat, he felt yet another great gust of wind and a renewed feebleness.
He was nothing in the face of this strength, in the face of this easy power that could at once be soft and mighty. He felt himself shrink, teetering in front of this aura of overwhelming, true, authentic, undeniable power.
When he moved his gaze, he found himself face-to-face with a deity. It had no face, nor a body, nor need for earthly containers. Yet, he felt its presence in prickles against his skin and saw its presence in the small twigs and icy fragments that had been caught in its gust.
Stunned into awed silence, his senses screamed at him to react, body at once drawn to and intimidated by the spirit, rendering him motionless. He was gobsmacked, feeling like his senses were deceiving him when the wind began to talk and the mountain under him reverberated with power.
‘Child,’ the mountain spirit said; its voice contained the multitudes of nature, holding within it the solitary clarity of the peak’s horizon, the piercing quality of the mountain’s icy blankets, and the immense density of mountain rock. He felt his surroundings vibrate like they were talking to him too. ‘I am the spirit of this mountain and am in charge of its natural order. In spring, summer, autumn, and winter, against Kings, fairies, warriors, and beats, I have protected the sanctity of this mountain’s peak. All of these mighty souls have fallen short against my height, but you, boy, have moved me with not muscles or splendor or looks but bravery and earnest mental might.’
And then something legendary happened. With a voice soaked in vast years and unbridled power, the mountain spirit told the boy, ‘I pronounce you man.’
The world shook for a while. The mountain teetered and tottered as if the earth had been unsettled, the air swelled and diffused like the tides of the sea, roughly filling his nostrils with the thick smoky scent of faraway fires and the grating sensation of loose dirt, and he felt his own heart break apart and come back together.
When he stopped feeling dizzy and nature had once again returned to its original calm, something about him had fundamentally changed. He was no longer a boy. Immediately and quickly, he was filled with an easy and instinctive confidence that made his once clumsy actions deft and his soft heart firm. In him, a warmth surged and traveled from his arm to his leg and finally back to his chest. He could feel his body pulse with the eagerness of his heart, no longer afraid as it beat and beat and beat and beat.
Inside his heart, he knew, with every fiber and every hair and every cell of his being, that he had become a man.
And that is the story of the Man’s Peak.”
Aber’s voice swelled as he retold the story to a new batch of fledgling hunters, the charismatic tremor of his voice conferring the tale a profound authority that enraptured the boys. Abidin watched as their curious gazes transformed into looks of bright gleaming wonder, transfixed by the storied man’s feat. Surreptitiously, they would glance at the mountain peaking over the distant horizon, just as imposing as the story had foretold.
Now, a boy of 17 years, Abidin was not sure whether he could call himself a man. Since hearing the story so many suns ago, he had thrown himself into village activities in a bid to prove his bravery and determination and met every success. He was gifted with an explosive might that won him every foot race, a sharp eye that won him every sword fight, and a natural charisma that won him even the older boys’ indubitable respect and subordination. Many would whisper as he passed by, they called him the next mighty warrior, the next Aber.
He wondered if he was doing things right. He was great, of course, he had no doubt about that, as Aber’s son, how could he be anything but great? But it all felt so easy and so insignificant, all these achievements were so small that they were lost in the shadows of his father’s imposing back.
All the other boys had already become men of the house that their fathers depended on. It was only he who stood rooted in time, unable to cross the boundary between boy and man.
As he watched his father convey the story with such enthusiasm and admiration, he wondered if he would ever receive the same respect.
***
The day he had first heard the myth of the man and the mountain, he had tasked himself to scale the top of the village center. It was the tallest structure the village boasted, consisting of big wooden pillars that lofted an A-frame roof. Every day, the villagers would go there to report their progress in their respective duties and jobs, and it was built to house at least 100 people at once.
As he scrambled up the ledges of the building’s windows and dug his toes into the grooves between the building’s wooden panels, the other boys laughed at him, “What are you doing? Do you think that climbing this house could make you as manly as the man on the peak?”
“Watch as he falls and learns how feeble he is”
But as he got higher and higher, and the distant roof of the village hall became within a few more arm’s lengths, the sureness of his movements and the easy confidence with which he climbed made the other boys feel small and distant under his gaze. Soon, they too began to climb the structure.
When they all made it to the top and nestled themselves into the crevices between the roof beams, they saw that, just like in the story, the world on the ground became small, the indomitable hunters that had guided them and were hauling back their prey looked as teensy as a moth, and the jolly conversations that had filled the streets resembled an insect’s buzzing. Aberlin had felt pride wash over him in waves, and in him, something warm and liquid sloshed in his abdomen and compelled him to stand up and do something bold and brave.
Grinning, he stood up and his voice washed over the village square like a tidal wave, “I PRONOUNCE MYSELF A MAN!”
The boys all laughed, but one by one they too stood up, and the village hall echoed with their reckless stomps and raucous cheers.
***
When you look down at something you once found imposing and realize how finite it is, no one ever talks about the realization that that must mean you look even smaller.
Abidin held his body loose, keeping his footsteps light and springy as he danced in place. His fingers were wrapped firmly around the worn leather hilt of his metal blade and he brandished it skilfully. His father was watching on the side and Abidin felt his disinterested gaze bear into him uncomfortably. Nervous, but unwilling to show it, Abidin tightened his grip and straightened his back, puffing up his chest in a display of confidence.
His opponent was 2 years older than him and well-recognized as a skilled swordsman. People said that he would be Abidin’s greatest competitor for the last spot in Aber’s elite hunting squad. They also said that this duel would decide it all.
Aber’s mind hung on that last line. Decide it all, huh?
His distraction was immediately rewarded by a ferocious metal blade. Abidin woke up, scrambling backward as his opponent moved to launch a flurry of slashes at his chest, each swing grazing the fabric of his shirt.
Abidin flung his blade forth in an attempt to curb his opponent’s momentum, deftly planting his knees into the ground as he pushed back against his opponent and ducked under an incoming blade. Startled, his opponent fell onto his backfoot, and Abidin, alive with instinct dove at the opening. He kicked at his opponent’s chest in a fanciful sequence of movements.
When his opponent fell on his bottom, Abidin did not finish the fight but smirked arrogantly. Lazily repositioning himself into a fighting position, Abidin let his eyes glance over his opponent’s sorry form and raised his hands in a provocative gesture.
Signaling at his opponent with his fingers, Abidin’s mouth split open in a scumbag grin, “They don’t call me the best swordsman of our generation for nothing, I barely trained this week. Now, when are you going to get off your sorry arse? We don’t have all day,”
Ticked off, his opponent made his way back up and sprung into action, unleashing another hailstorm of vicious one-after-another attacks. This time, however, Abidin smiled and launched a sequence of attacks. With intricate flourishes and skillful footwork, Abidin blocked all of his opponent’s attacks with an overwhelming and instinctive ease.
In seconds, the ring of metal against metal faded into a distant hum and he found himself face to face with his opponent’s raised hands and his sword pressed to the center of his opponent’s chest.
“Nice match,” Abidin ran one of his hands through his thick black curls as he used the other to help his opponent up. Faintly, he heard the crowd buzzing with excitement and felt his heart expand with warm pride. Some girls came up to him to congratulate him and briefly, he felt like he was at the top of the world. Was this what it felt like to be a man?
Smiling roguishly, he waved them away and turned to look for Aber. Stone cold. He felt his heart sink as he saw his impassive expression. Still, he held onto hope.
“Pretty amazing, aren’t I? Besting the genius swordsman you complimented so much. One must wonder how far I’ll be able to go?”
Aber’s obsidian eyes were as impenetrable as ever, and Abidin felt his voice die in his throat in the face of their nonchalance.
His father’s voice rang with the same authority that made Abidin admire him so much, “Could have been better,”
“But you’ll let me join you on the next hunt, right?”
A beat. Two. Three. Finally, Aber broke the silence, “No.”
His reply was curt and impassive, and Abidin felt his face freeze in place. “But why? I beat him! I’m better! I’m your son.”
Aber remained silent, and his stoicism tugged roughly at the strings of Abidin’s heart. He felt himself become restless and his insides knotted.
“Oh wow, so the great warrior of the village can’t even recognize real strength? What is it - are you afraid I’ll outshine you? How old are you now even, your hair has begun to grey and you’re still holding onto the past?” Abidin felt his face tense up and his eyes sharpen with indignance. His stomach swirled with uneasiness.
He had always had a knack for understanding people. Keenly and intuitively, he could sense their insecurities and toe the fine line between teasing and insult. Yet, his father was the one person he could never read. It was like staring at a wall. His father never failed to make him small, whenever he was in Aber’s presence he could not help but feel like he was powerless and bereft of control, a small boy again.
“You will never know! You will never know how it feels to have a father who can’t recognize your potential. Who clips my wings? You will never know!” His anger was regurgitated in baleful words. Something hot and uncomfortable clenched around his throat,
It was why he always tried to seem effortlessly good. He was trying to convince himself that he was of an innate and inborn value. To convince his father that he was capable of following in his footsteps. That he was more than a product of his father, that he was his own man with his own will.
Aber’s silence made Abidin feel all the more pathetic, a petulant child unable to process his emotions and only capable of lashing out against his father.
Feeling his anger bubble up and press hotly against his eyes, they began to water. Furious, he refused to let his father notice his quickened breathing or his clenched hands. He turned away abruptly and stormed back to their house, mind circulating painful poisonous thoughts.
He sees me as a BOY.
Brusquely brushing past body after body in the village square, Abidin felt a tear leak down his cheek, and the skin it touched stung with salt.
***
The boy in front of him was at once strange and familiar. His curly black locks framed his cherubic face and the earthen brown of his eyes brought out the caramel of his skin tone. Curiously, Abidin examined his skinny arms and stretched-out proportions.
He took in the sight of himself. He was 13 years old and had just finished a bath, his skin felt raw from scrubbing and he felt similarly strange.
He cupped a hand over his growing private parts and felt as if they were incongruous with the rest of his body. That summer, he had been the first of friends to shoot up, towering over them by a head.
His father told him that this was the beginning of his journey towards becoming a man, but he felt grief for the boy he was now. Who is anyone to declare him better for the changes?
He smiled at his reflection. I think you are man enough.
***
It was late at night and Abidin was sitting curled up along the village outskirts. In front of him, the night sky unfurled in a grand tapestry. The dark swathes of deep unfathomable blacks cloaked the horizon which was stitched with diamond jewels that hung neatly on the sky. There were so many of them that the night seemed to ripple with some mysterious magic, and he quietly took in the sight of the moonlight reflecting off the stars and forming limpid reflections in the lake.
He wondered how far away the stars were, and how they felt to be so small and so bright at the same time, a real-life paradox that defied the rules of human society.
Knees to his chest, and head resting on them, his gaze turned to the mammoth outline of Man’s Peak a little way ahead. He wondered if he would need to go through with his plan.
Abidin felt like a lie. All his skill, might, and passion played up into a fanciful caricature of a real man. Since young, he had been taught that being a man went past worldly markers of strength, speed, and charisma. He saw it in the broad back of his father, heard it in the notes of his voice, and felt it in that piercing obsidian stare. His father’s existence had always felt destined, intractable, his authority as self-explanatory as the cliffs that grace a mountain, or the way the birds sing. His manhood was as natural as nature, and Abidin had spent his whole life trying to live up to it.
Everything in the world seemed to move around him as if recognizing Aber for his original contributions to the world. He was a pioneer and Abidin had only blindly followed the path he carved, never on his own. Nothing he had ever done was his own.
His father’s silence, that resounding derogatory silence, never failed to enlighten him to the fact. Win a match? I did it first. Climb a tree? Oh, your father did that. Lead a charge? Just like your father. Even a distant dream like becoming the chief hunter - Your father did that first.
This was a realm in which all his present and future achievements and his glory were delimited and once conquered. What adventure? He was just a lost boy playing pretend.
An illusion, he thought to himself, as he held his back up straight and again put on a cocky grin. Best swordsman the village had ever seen.
This is easy.
He stared into the impenetrable night, eyes reflecting the distant glow of flickering stars, and imagined himself to be blanketed in his nothingness. He wondered if he could throw it all away, and forge a new path.
Suddenly, a star came loose off the firmament, spinning radically and shining brightly through the night. Stark and white, it crashed through the sky and careened towards the left. Aber’s gaze followed it, enamored by its freedom. It was then he saw the mountain.
The dark expanse of its silhouette was partly illuminated by the shooting star as it pushed past it and hid itself behind its outline. He looked up at the mighty figure that seemed to so effortlessly reach past the horizon and contain behind its stars.
He felt his heart beat a little faster and his skin lined with prickles of static. In him rose a desire to do a bold and daring thing. I pronounce myself a man.
***
By the time Abidin reached the foot of the mountain, the sun had penetrated the deep night. Softly, its light blanketed the distant blobs that marked out the village houses and made them take on a majestic red hue. The verdant greens that surrounded their village bathed in the same ethereal light and were made holy in their lushness. Great oak trees, wild and vast meadows, and powerful rushing blue brooks were all reduced to small indistinct illustrations that seemed like a distant sepia fantasy. Yet, Abidin thought that the reds, yellows, greens, and blues blended well and made up a cohesive and idyllic picture.
Turning around, he let his eyes travel up the sheer incline of Man’s Peak. Monstrous was the right word. Even from afar, it had seemed so large and impenetrable. Up close, it seemed even more beastly. When he looked up, all he could see was the shadowed needle point tip of the peak. Abidin noted the gravel that spilled out from its cliff, covering the path with sharp spiky protrusions that were sure to perforate the leather of his soles and dig into his skin. The rocky footholds were rough, jagged, and unpolished. A distance away, someone’s torn shirt was stuck on the bare branches of a barren tree.
He felt his spine quiver with both fear and excitement. Jaw taut with determination and straightening his shoulders, Abidin took his first steps.
***
He had lost track of how much time had passed. The scenery in the mountain blended into each other and he could no longer distinguish which rock, tree, or snow pile he was now passing. He would not have been surprised to find out he had been walking in circles if not for the fact that he had been steadfastly climbing towards the peak.
Very quickly, he realized the difficulty of his task. The air had grown thin and insubstantial, his lungs laboring like a man working furiously to pay off his debt. Even the finite oxygen he took in was laced with icy fragments of snow, and he swore that he could feel each particle come together to scratch at the back of his throat.
Having left on impulse, he had failed to consider packing supplies and the sandpaper texture of his tongue spoke for it. His stomach rumbled woefully and he could feel fists banging from inside his hollow abdomen. At moments, when climbing a particularly perilous cliff, he would feel his muscles go slack from exhaustion like they were a rubber band pulled past the point they could be elastic.
Still, he dug his bleeding fingertips into coarse andesite and jammed his bruised toes and perforated heels into narrow footholds, holding back winces as he grits his teeth and straightens his back.
He wondered whether anyone had noticed he was missing yet. If his friends would continue hunting like they had all planned, or if his father would pause his duties to come check on him. Something ugly and forlorn gripped its cold and gnarled fingers around the heart in his chest, squeezing it tightly as he continued his ascent.
His muscles quivered and the wind beat unceasingly at the tears in his clothing that exposed his bare chest. “Steel yourself, Aber. You are a man above all men,” He lunged forward with one tremoring bicep. “Best swordsman in the village,” He ruthlessly yanked his hand downwards, and up came the rest of his body and his left hand. “Best hunter in the village,” He wrenched himself upwards once again.
His solitary figure blended into the shadows of the terrain, the trail of blood he left quickly drying into a muted rusty brown. The mountain remained large, imposing, and unblemished. Just one tiny unnoticeable dot on an untouchable canvas.
***
He was lying on a small flat cliff around halfway up the mountain. The top still seemed farther off than ever and he was rooted in place. His muscles felt like lead and his head pounded mercilessly. His dry throat had transformed into the Sahara desert and while his insides felt warm and feverish his skin was ice cold and clammy.
His back creaked as he forced himself up and dug his hands into a nearby snow pile, lifting the icy fragments into his mouth and letting them melt. He sighed with relief as the water soothed the rough surface of his throat and his hands were frantic and ravenous as they scrambled to gather more snow.
He had withheld from consuming the snow up till now, seeing it to be unbefitting of someone like him who had been successful since birth. It was considered unsightly and primitive to consume snow, the pearly whiteness a veneer for dirt, grime, and animal urine. But he could not find a lake, and the journey would take him days yet.
Immediately, he felt red-hot shame well up, and his eyes turned angry with his incompetence. He knew that he was being illogical, but still, he felt himself turn ugly and stupid. He slammed one hand down on the pile of snow. The velocity made the pure white pile scatter, and with repeated slams, it had become nothing more than a few pathetic white clumps.
He let himself concentrate on the faint ache that emanated from his bruised fists.
Exhaustion hovered over him like a looming figure, and it whispered in his ears like a siren telling him to stop. It pulled forth images of a warm inviting bed, a steaming hot bowl of savoury porridge and the hearty chuckles that he enjoyed with his peers. He felt his determination waver and his fists slacken just a bit.
Flicking his tongue against his teeth, he glanced back down at the fog that obscured the way he had come from.
***
“I’ll do it! I’ll do it! Me!” Abidin waved his arm vigorously and stared pleadingly at Aber. It was their very first archery class and Aber had just asked one of the older boys to volunteer to demonstrate the correct technique to Abidin and the rest.
Aber stared pensively at his son, and the older boys who had been raring to go looked at Abidin caustically. “This is your first class. What mighty god are you to be able to teach us on your first go?” One snidely remarked. In the background, Abidin noticed a few more older boys snigger.
Instantaneously, he felt his cheeks heat up with embarrassment and his tear ducts grow hot. A messy ball of emotions choked him and he stared at them with great reproach.
Piping up again, he stood up righteously, “Can too!”. He looked at Aber expectantly, crossing his arms as he attempted to bay his quivering lips.
Aber sighed heavily before stepping aside and gesturing at the target.
Eyes lighting up, Abidin scrambled up and made his way to grab a bow and arrow. Planting his feet firmly on the ground and staring intensely at the bullseye, the bow felt heavy in his hands. He struggled to keep them from trembling and the bow string felt overwhelmingly stiff under his pull. Still, he insisted on going on and shakily pulled the string backward.
He had been watching his father teach this class for a few years now and he had made sure to take note of the proper positioning. Painstakingly, he brought his body into the proper position and he saw the crowd go silent in acknowledgement.
His eyes lit up with excitement when he noticed his father take a step closer to him.
Abidin took in a deep breath, pulling his hand back as he lined his eye up with the arrow’s tail and the tail with the bullseye. His muscles strained with the tension and he felt his arm shake as he prepared to take his shot.
Please, please, please! He prayed that it would go in the right spot and placed his bets on chance. Whoosh! The arrow shot forward, the arrowhead sharply cutting through the air and spinning rapidly as it crossed 10 yards, 20, 30…
Abidin felt a moment of elation as everyone gasped at his successful release, and anticipation built up as their eyes remained glued to the blurry white feathers of the arrow’s tails.
In a second or two, they watched indifferently as the arrow planted itself in the dirt next to the stand, missing it entirely. Abidin’s heart had caught in place, desperately squeezing for some relief, His mind ran in circles as he processed failures and he felt his breaths quicken as the children elapsed into murmurs.
Fearfully, his pupils had dilated as he slowly craned his head to look at his father, only to see him passing a bow to an older boy to demonstrate the proper technique once again.
His disappointment sank into his stomach like a rock, and Abidin felt like he couldn’t breathe. Bogged out and unable to focus, Abidin’s movements felt heavy for the rest of the day.
So, this is a shame. He had thought to himself, compressing himself into a ball, as if to minimize his mistake along with his presence. He never hated himself more.
What is wrong with you? His father had told him when they got home.
Since that day he had always relentlessly picked at his fingers. He resolved not to fail again.
What is wrong with you? He echoed.
***
It happened when he was around 3 quarters up the mountain. It was a miracle he had made it so far before it did.
The peak had come into view, once a vague and indistinct pinpoint, it was finally in tangible focus. Grand, colossal, towering, but, indisputably, near.
Abidin had been making grand, awe-inspiring jumps, wrangling his body from one position to another in rapid succession. His fingers were cramping from the effort and sweat trickled down the hooked edge of his nose. If Aber had been watching, Abidin was sure he would’ve gotten him to at least lift his brow.
The closeness of the peak invigorated him. He was dizzy with God’s nectar, ecstasy lined his veins and fortified mortal flesh. He was invincible. He was more than a man. Fervently, he climbed, more mind than body. Unthinkingly putting up hand after hand and foot after foot, knees screaming with effort.
He felt bold and inspiring, like a man in a legend and he thought about how his father had so revered Man’s Peak. Forced crackling laughter echoed against the mountain walls, and his pride guided his hands into a riskier position.
His foot, gallant, pressed down complacently into a skimpy foothold and he looked upwards, ready to soar.
It was noon, and the sun had risen right overhead. In its warm golden halo, he felt divine, bright - celestial. One hand reached upwards almost to grasp it, and as his finger clipped the ledge overhead, he heard an ominous crick.
And instantly, his world crumbled. Stone cleaved apart to expose a hard rocky expanse. Below, a stray wolf’s howl echoed across the plane. Shards of debris tumbled down the slope, and he was left there hanging, one hand facing the sun, as his feet danced over the air.
His blood lubricated his fingers, and in a sudden swift motion, they slipped off the cliff, failing him, denying him of moving his other hand further towards the light. His fingernails clipped the rocks and he was suspended in the air.
For that brief weightless moment, he felt his stomach lurch up to his chest and his brain hit the top of his skull. His body felt jumbled and discordant like a child’s first village dance and his arms felt paralysed in place. He watched, unblinking, as the colossal peak grew just a little bit smaller, and his chest was gripped with a thick, swathing despair.
Roughly, his body rammed into the hard rock of the mountainside, and he tumbled down the immense vertical in a ramshackle pattern, the body sometimes lifting off the ground to catch momentary air before getting the air knocked out of him. Body a limp spinning ragdoll that contorted as it clashed over and over again with the steely might of mountain stone. Spinning, he finally landed on a nearby cliff.
His clothes were torn and most of him was left bare. He felt like a newborn. Weak, his bare skin shivered against the icy mountainside, and the wind felt harsh and unfamiliar. No longer suspended in the air, he had been harshly thrown out into the real world. He could not move his arms or his legs and his skin was streaked with blood. Desperately, he wished for a mother’s touch. Tears streamed down his cheeks and the sun shone on them, making them glint. A fricative sob escaped his pursed lips and his face screwed itself into an ugly expression.
Bloody with nature’s placenta, he imagined an umbilical cord stretching from his belly button to the indistinct tip of the mountain. It tangled with branches, and protrusions, and wove in and out of the mountain. He watched it fragment as he was severed.
The loss engulfed him.
He was so angry. Nature had rejected him. It had torn him from the sky and flung him recklessly to the ground where he shrivelled up like a dying star. He tried to move, to twitch, to release some of this pent-up anger. But he could do nothing. And so, he let it build and build until it pried open his mouth with spiny forceful fingers. The sound echoed and was hysterical, he could only wail and wail, feeling so small and powerless and insignificant. In the back of his head, he heard his father’s voice and then his own. What’s wrong with you?
He found the strength to dig his fingers into his palm.
***
Many moments passed before his tears dried and he once again felt empty. Hollow, he now ached for something good and wonderful to support his shell of a body. Above him, the sun had moved beyond the mountain, and he was eclipsed in total darkness, now lost and aimlessly swimming in his thoughts.
At first, despair had plagued him, but then it had faded into a staunch denial. He refused to believe that he was not meant for this. That he could never be the man who owned a mountain. He needed not strength nor speed nor attention, all he ever wanted was to be recognized, noted, and known.
He wondered why he had failed. Why God had punished him for his excitement. He remembered his fluttering heart, his screaming limbs, and how incredibly bright all of it was. How could anything so good ever be wrong?
Everything was so infuriatingly ironic. He scolded himself for his arrogance. Now, look what you’ve done. Look how frail you’ve become.
His body was gaunt, broken, and unappetizing. The animals which he had previously managed to avoid with his superior strength and speed now paid him no mind. He had nothing now compared to his father, no strength, no speed, no trace of manhood.
What am I left with? Who am I without you? His empty stare met the night sky. A deep midnight blue. He was reminded of his reflection in the lake.
I pronounce myself a man.
His lungs expand.
I. Me. Not him.
The epiphany aroused a fiery determination that incensed him in body and soul. It did nothing for his ragged breathing, bruised ribs, or torn muscles, which remained present and wracked his every move with agonizing pain. But somehow, it imbued him with the same speed, same strength, and a newfound steadiness.
He blew at his fingertips.
He angled his body towards the peak.
***
It was within reach. And he was painstakingly aware of it. Ten good leaps and he’d be up there.
Canopying him was the rock wall leading up to the peak, and his blood thrummed at the palpability of it all. His arms ached, and his feet’s skin had been mutilated multiple times over. He craned his neck as he entered the climb at a 45-degree angle.
Each stroke of his arm was perilous and awe-inspiring. Him, a speck hanging off a bony arm, on the edge of a mountain, dwarfed millions of times over. The gravity he felt was tremendous and the thin mountain air demanded his lungs work relentlessly.
His lips moved into an O-shape as he blew out a stream of foggy air. He could swear that some of his sweat had iced over and he could feel each droplet keenly on his back. He gripped his hand around one rocky protrusion and steadily hoisted himself up, both his feet were off the ledge they had previously been on and he was suspended in the air again.
His body was crumpling under the stress and he struggled to keep his arms from giving in. Slowly, he lifted his arm once more and his legs onto another ledge. Up and up he went, Each movement more miraculous than the next.
If he bothered to look down, he would have noticed the sun beginning to rise behind him. He hallucinated that someone was pushing at his back with warm, motherly hands.
Just one reach of the hand left to the top, he felt his body stutter and his numb hands grow unmalleable and hard. Still, his eyes remained deadlocked to the edge of the peak’s cliff and he reached upwards.
Upwards. He told himself like he always did. Upwards. Beyond. Above.
He imagined himself a brave adventurer like he had masqueraded in his early childhood. His body pressed flat against the peak, he felt his heartbeat resonate against the mountain stone and did his best to give a dashing smile.
He rested there for a while, fingers frostbitten and limp as he prepared himself for that final risky limp. He stretched out his hand longingly for the peak, and above him, the last night star faded into the cold blue of the early morning sky.
His fingers closed around a solid, textured rock. And then it was gone.
Abidin was suspended in the sky, and as his head careened backward he caught a glimpse of the rising sun. It illuminated everything. The ledges he had rested on, the surfaces he had scaled, the trees he had leaned on and the snow he had drank. It was beautiful and majestic and so effortlessly vast.
He lifted a bloody hand towards the sun, and suddenly he was falling, headfirst downwards, cutting across the sky like a magnificent shooting star. Glorious.
He smiled, forlorn,
Just shy. Man’s Peak. Just shy.
***
It rung. Deep and resonant.
You make yourself out to be such a great big grand mystery. But you are just a boy. And I hope you know that that is enough.
He remains silent and his head is pointed at his feet, but his eyes glisten with unshed tears.
My boy, you are enough
He blinks them away furiously, and without batting one more eye, he grins up at the omnipotent figure. “What made you think I didn’t think that already?”
Easy confidence ooze: out of his voice, a smooth sleek tenor. But even as his rambles hinge on complacency and as he continues to hem and haw, his pupils dance up and down, in a rapid tussle between largeness and an infinitesimal nothing/ caught in limbo/ seesawing between expansion and contraction as if it was a beating heart saying thank you thank you thank you.
Inside his heart, he thought,
So, I am enough
And, for a moment, his rambles give way to a brief airy breath.
***
A frail figure crashes through the sky, a bleak speck on the horizon. It twists and turns, limbs jutting in odd directions. A stunning spiral that pirouetted before slamming into hard, unrelenting stone.
Distantly, the old man at the peak hears a crack.
***
It was midday and the sun had risen high in the sky, overlooking the village like a mother watching their child. Aber was positioned lazily at the top of the hill where he usually took the children. While they played noisily behind him, reveling at the sight of Man’s Peak, he looked down at the idyllic picture of the village and wondered if that was what the sun saw.
How beautiful it all seemed.
Small things that come together to make a big picture.
He lazily closed his eyes and basked in the sun’s warm stare. The earth rumbled heartily underneath him and he concentrated on the way his lungs expanded and contracted. One small dot that made up a vast landscape.
He was content.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This piece was written by one of our literature columnists, Elizabeth. Reach her at @molesnout on Instagram!
This piece was edited by one of our editors, Abdullah. Reach him at @OladejoAFeranmi on Twitter!
