The Gap in the Mountains

Si was midway on his journey when he stopped and sat on a white rock. An adjacent, crooked signpost with indecipherable letters (except an 'A' and an 'O'), pointed up a rising, straight road. His manual watch had stopped at ten o’clock, and he had forgotten to wind it up when he woke up earlier. He could not remember what time he left the hotel, but he did remember the rosy sunrise from the dirty bedroom window. Thirsty, and a bit warm, he took out a water bottle from his leather backpack and drank from it, then looked back. As he did so, a white stork flew across the blue sky.

The road stretched back towards the horizon, vanishing between a gap between two rugged mountains. Despite the heat, a dewy mist had shrouded the summit of the mountains. When he felt sufficiently rested, he stood up, put his bottle back in his backpack, then hiked up the road with the mountains behind him.

After what felt to him like an hour, though he was not sure, he came to a leafless tree and a low mound. Briefly, Si looked behind and could not see the valley before the mountains. It was as if the road had swallowed it whole, leaving only the two lumbering mountains. He sat for a moment on the mound and massaged his warm head. Then he drank more water before continuing his journey.

When the sun had reached its peak, a snack bar materialised on Si’s left. A family of three sat at a plastic garden table. A bony man in a pink shirt and chinos, wearing designer sunglasses, sat talking to a petite woman with braided hair, red nails and wearing a floral dress. A bespectacled boy sat between them, mashing buttons on his portable games console, uninterested in the discussion. As Si approached, the adults' conversation grew louder and sharper. The man pushed his chair back and stood up with a grunt.

"I'm off," he snapped.

"Whatever," the woman sighed.

The man walked a few yards away from Si and the snack bar, but back in the direction of the mountains. The woman rolled her eyes, then leaned over to the boy. "Did you finish your homework before we came out?"

"Yes, Mom."

She wrapped her smooth arm around his shoulders and kissed his forehead. As Si walked past the table towards the snack bar, a whiff of her perfume flew up his nostrils, floral and spicy, and full of old memories. Behind the counter stood a shrunken old woman wearing a veil. Her face bore deep lines and one milky white eyeball.

"I know what you want," she said in a raspy voice.

"Yes, is this the quickest route to town?" Si asked.

"No, that's not what you want. You want a hot dog."

As she spoke, a tiny dog barked from inside the bar. Si stood on his toes to peer over the counter and spotted a black dachshund with floppy ears next to the woman's feet.

"Be quiet, Beethoven! Anyway, I'll make you a hot dog now."

She opened a packet of sausages and dropped one on a griddle pan. The black pan sizzled and smoked to life as she teased and turned the sausage with a pair of metal tongs. "Would you like onions?"

"I suppose...yes, please."

She chopped a white onion then threw it into the pan next to the sausage. She turned the sausage, ensuring all sides were cooked, then moved the onions around until they had turned moist and golden. She put the sausage in a soft white roll, then sprinkled the cooked onions over. "Ketchup and mustard?"

Si's stomach rumbled, and he licked his lips. "Oh, yes...yes please. Err, how much is it?"

"This one's on the house, son."

"Oh. Thank you so much."

The woman and her son had gone, so Si sat on the table alone and ate. The hot dog filled a hole in him beyond mere hunger, the hot, dripping meat, the fluffy white bread roll, the sweet onions, the tartness of the ketchup and tang of the mustard...an ice-cold beer would have gone down well with this, he thought. Life.

A scream pierced his happy existence. Behind him, the snack bar had erupted in flames and black clouds of smoke roiled towards him. He shoved the table and chair aside, dropping the hot dog on the ground, and bolted for the door at the side. The metal handle singed his hand when he grabbed it. He wrapped his hand in the cuff of his jacket, then pulled, straining until he yanked it open. The old woman tumbled out with the dachshund in her arms, followed by thick plumes of black smoke. Si put an arm around her and led her a safe distance away from the shop as it burned. She coughed, and the dog yapped incessantly, as Si brought a chair for her to sit on.

"My snack shop," she whispered.

"Let me call for help," Si said.

His phone battery had died somewhere along the road.

"I don't know what happened. I was just cooking, and then…what am I going to do now?"

"Do you have a phone?"

"This shop was helping my grandson through university." She covered her face and burst into tears.

Si went into his rucksack, pulled out a pack of tissues and handed them to her. "I'll call for help when I get to town."

The old woman shrugged. "That's what they all say."

"No, I will. I promise. I'll get a taxi to come get you and take you home, or something."

The woman dabbed the tears from her eyes. "Promise me you won't forget me." Close up, she reminded Si of his grandmother.

"I promise," Si said. He stood up, bent down to hug her, and then ran off up the road. For several miles, he continued to hear the dachshund barking behind him, and smelt black smoke, burning metal and melting plastic.

The Sun had begun to descend but Si looked back on the mountains, with the road cutting a gap between them. I've been walking all day...town must be near surely, he thought. He vowed to find help for the old lady as soon as possible. Would she still be there at the roadside, he wondered. A thin tendril of dark smoke curled up to the sky far off in the distance where he imagined the snack bar had been.

His legs started to ache, and the soles of his feet started to throb. He stopped in the middle of the road and looked all around. The road ahead wound serpent-like through a rocky desert with one or two skeletal trees and a patch of scrub. He could clearly see where travellers or vagrants had left campfires, black holes in the ground filled with charred wood that resembled leopard’s spots.

A few yards away in the scrub, Si spotted a bright red rose bush. Dee would love one or two, he thought, so he trampled through the scrub and picked a bunch of the freshest looking ones. He refrained from smelling them, because he wanted her to smell them first. He imagined going home to her, giving her the roses.

"They're beautiful," she would say.

He would smile in reply, then, as she would always do, she would kiss him on the forehead and they would sit at their tiny kitchen table, drink tea and talk about their day.

A taxi painted green screeched to a halt on the road and disturbed his thoughts. An older man, not much older than sixty, got out of the driver’s seat and stormed around to the back. He opened the car boot and pulled out a contraption consisting of a long metal hose and a cylindrical tank which he carried in one hand. His fierce eyes glared at Si as he marched over, the nozzle of the device aimed at him.

"Move! I need to extinguish this rose bush immediately!"

"Wait, no!" Si screamed.

A huge jet of fire fanned out from the old man’s hose, engulfing the rose bush in hot flames that billowed up to the sky and warmed Si’s face. 

"What the hell are you doing?"

Once the bush had been sufficiently torched, the old man shrugged. "You need to learn when to let these things go." He snatched the roses from Si’s hand, threw them on the ground and crushed them with his boot.

Si pulled his fist backwards like a sling and flung it forward, aiming for the man’s face. The man veered left and Si fell onto a thorny bush. Groaning, he lifted himself up, his face cut and covered with red scratches. "You're a real piece of shit aren’t you?" he spat.

The man made a mock salute with his hand, then sped back to his taxi, threw the flamethrower back in the boot, and drove off in a cloud of dust, leaving Si with the ruined, incinerated remains of the rose bush.

The Sun approached its end. The sky now had a reddish, purple hue, like a bad bruise. Si's wife was in his thoughts as he climbed, descended and then once more climbed the seemingly everlasting road. Drenched in sweat, smelling of smoke, weary and hungry, he carried on. He had stopped looking over his shoulder, knowing he would see those accursed mountains. He looked down at his aching feet and saw a hole in the toe of his right shoe. I must get a new pair of shoes in town, he thought. Then I’ll find a flower shop and I can buy roses for Dee. Oh, and the old woman...

As he crested another rise, a row of spear-like mountains rose sheer to touch the darkening sky. A deep valley yawned directly below him, but at the other side of the valley, one or two glittering lights sparkled behind the gap between the mountains. Si cried out, overcome with joy. He started to run despite the aches in his legs, the stabbing pains in his chest, and the burning soreness in his feet. He couldn’t stop running.

"I’m going to make it!" he shouted.

His right foot tripped first. A stray stone on the road caused him to slip. His knees bent first and then he crashed into the ground, hands in front, sliding across the concrete surface. His chin banged into the road, splitting it open. For a moment, he lay there as white-hot pain surged through all junctures of his limbs. He tried to push himself up with his scratched and grazed hands, but his legs wouldn’t move.

Sirens squealed behind him and a white ambulance rolled up beside him, its red lights flashing. The driver’s door opened and a decrepit old woman in a green paramedic’s uniform and a veil fumbled out. Her partner, a young man with deep brown eyes and a long nose, followed behind her.

"Oh, my goodness!" the young man yapped. "Are you okay sir? It’s horrible, Mother! It’s horrible! Horrible!"

"Shut up and get the aid kit, Ludwig!" she bellowed in a raspy. "Sir, you’re going to be okay," she said to Si.

Ludwig brought the aid kit and laid it on the road next to Si's head. With soft white cotton balls and an antiseptic-smelling liquid, he cleaned Si's chin. Si screamed as the liquid stung the open wound. Then Ludwig stuck thin butterfly stitches on the wound, and then put a plaster over it. "There, good as gold," he said as they both headed back to the ambulance.

"Wait!" Si screamed. "Take me back to town with you!"

"Oh, you’ll be fine. Come Ludwig, it’s almost suppertime," the woman said as she slammed her door shut.

"Wait! I think I need to go to hospital!"

The ambulance made a U-turn and drove back in the direction it had come, leaving Si in a cloud of dust as the Sun disappeared.

Surrounded by dark, the pain in Si's body had subsided slightly after an hour or two. He was now hobbling along the road, making him feel like an old man. The road took him down into the valley, where creatures of the night watched him, and up a final dark hill until he reached the summit of the monstrous mountains. He started to feel light-headed. Twinkling stars started to appear in the black sky and a full moon cast a silvery light on the road. It looked like he was walking on sparkling gemstones. He reached the mountains base, then squinted. Ahead was a crooked signpost, only showing the letters ‘A’ and ‘O’.

Si slammed his rucksack onto the road and roared, his anguished cries disturbing the night.

Filled with rage, he fell to the ground in the middle of the road, smashing the ground with his fist until it bled. Then he covered his face and cried. Hot tears ran down his cheeks and stung his hands and his face where he had fallen earlier.

"What’s the point," he sobbed. "What’s the fucking point of everything?"

"Excuse me?" a reedy voice called to him.

Si looked up, wiped the tears from his eyes and saw an ascetic man standing before him. He was short-limbed and bony, wrapped in saffron robes, with skin the colour of ash. His long, matted silver hair was tied in a neat bun, with stray dreadlocks tumbling past his chin.

"I don't suppose you can you show me the best way to town?" Si asked.

The ascetic sat beside him. "You got lost, didn't you?"

Si nodded.

"Everyone gets lost at some point in their journeys," the ascetic said. "It’s okay. You mustn't be upset." He put a skeletal arm around Si, who remained silent. "You're expecting some wisdom right now, aren't you? Some glimmer of truth, or the answer to all your problems. Am I right?"

Si shrugged. He wrapped his aching arms around himself. The night had grown cold, and a mist had descended over the mountains behind him.

"Here," the ascetic said. He handed Si a pile of clean clothes, a smart jacket, shirt and tie, trousers, polished shoes, and underwear.

"What are these for?"

"Well, your clothes are filthy. Look at your shoes."

"Thank you," Si said, his voice breaking and tears welling in his eyes. "Thank you so much." The tears started again. "It’s just been so hard."

He dressed behind a thorn bush and put his old clothes in his rucksack. "How do I look?" he asked the ascetic.

"Very smart, sir. You look ready for a very special occasion."

The entire road ahead of him was now veiled by a thick mist. Si reached a hand out and shook the ascetic's thin hand. "Will we ever meet again?"

The ascetic placed his hands together. "I hope so. Just don’t forget your people."

Si remembered Dee and the old woman. He took a deep breath and started to walk. Then he stopped and called back to the ascetic. "You don't have the time, do you?"

The ascetic looked at his watch. "It's ten o'clock, sir."

Si smiled as he walked through the mist, and into the gap in the mountains.