Forsaken at the Feet of the Mountain God

I had been dying for a long time before this day, but the finality of it all still managed to scare me. Over the course of my illness, I had imagined quite a number of scenarios revolving around my demise, yet none had come close to the actuality that consumed me. Or, paralyzed me, rather. In each scenario I dreamt, I had whispered my final words to whoever was near me. My mother, my wife, the nurse on shift, or even the custodian passing by my door. Never had it occurred to me that I would be utterly and terribly alone.

And, in each scenario, the last words I would utter would be of significant meaning, leaving my final message forever with whomever I spoke with. I had the rare opportunity of knowing of death’s coming, and I had intended to make use of it by going in the utmost of grace and pride. My wife would have her final image of me be one of elegance and honor. All of these thoughts, a plethora of opportunities, and yet none of them will ever part my lips. 

Had I been ten, no, twenty years younger, perhaps the fall would have been a funny story to tell to my grandchildren. Remember when grandpa went hiking by himself, and stumbled too close to the edge? But it is not so. I am not young, and there are no grandchildren to speak of. All that I am shall soon end, here, and be encased forever in the rocky tomb sitting at the base of the mountain. 

From where I lie, the mountain appears to be a giant. His head reaches up high into the clouds, too proud to be seen by the likes of us mortals. The giant’s back arches and rolls across the valley, dotted with tiny green hairs that shake  lightly in the breeze.  And, though I could not see it, I knew that if I had been able to turn my head that I would see the giant’s colossal legs hanging over me. All he had to do was lift his foot ever so slightly, and crush me away into the earth like a bug. 

I wonder if this is how ants feel, watching curious children with magnifying glasses and velcro shoes discover their home. The long shadow of dread draping the hill in a quiet terror, the rumbling laughs of beings beyond comprehension. Perhaps it would be better if the giant could move, and had the curiosity to watch my insignificant life be stamped out. Being watched like this only prolonged the inevitable. 

For the first twelve hours, there was nothing but the heat of the blistering sun to remind me that I was alive. I could not feel my heart beating any longer, but I knew that it must be, for the sun’s presence did not relent. But what happens once it does? Will I fall over the horizon as well, or will I remain to witness the moon as well? What I longed for most in this moment was the privilege to remain ignorant, to fade before the answers to these questions became relevant. 

At last, the giant must have taken pity on me, for he reached into the sky and pulled clouds from the heavens. Would I soon join them, or did I belong far below, in a place similar to the scorching heat I had faced only moments earlier?

On all accounts, my life had not entirely been a bad one. My parents had been kind, working hard to repel the forces of the world that tear down folks like us. Folks who had been born to feed the machines became part of the system that gave others pleasure. Whenever my parents spoke of it, they never complained about how unfair it was that we had been born at the bottom rather than the top. But, if it makes people happy, how can it be evil? I had asked. Because, my dear. My mother whispered. Where do you believe the joy is being taken from?

This particular conversation struck a chord in my mind, one which still resonates with its haunting tune every once in a while. I was fascinated by the concept, and had taken the metaphorical machine quite literally. I drew pages and pages of comics, painting my parents as the noble heroes fighting off the joy-sucking machine that terrorized the world. It was this story that sparked my interest in writing.

By the time I entered high school, I had filled notebooks and notebooks with whatever I could imagine. From superheroes and machines to fairies and dragons, my mind never ceased to create. I even had a few works published in a magazine, at one point. As I honed my craft, my skills earned me a scholarship to the local college. 

My parents were ecstatic, never expecting or hoping that their children would gain a higher education. I would be the first (and, evidently, last) in the family line to acquire a degree of any sort. With this at my disposal, I was able to pick up a stable job and rent a place of my own. Not that writing had anything to do with managing the finances of an insurance company, but there were worse places to end up. 

Around the five year mark of my employment at Reese & Wessons, my financial situation had greatly improved from that of my childhood. I moved to a place in the city, a cozy little apartment just a few minutes from the downtown area. That’s where I met her. 

Perhaps the thing I will miss most in this world is my dear Eriko. I can almost feel her tender hands upon mine, the warmth of her skin soothing the uneasiness caused by the insects crawling over my limp figure. Surely, if she had been here, she would have whispered reassurances in my ear and held my head in her lap, the same way she used to when we were young. Of course, she is not really here, and I will never see her again.

Now, as the unbearable heat seemed to lessen, the night creatures could emerge from their shelters and begin their hunt. My eyes, stuck half-open, had long since dried out while I dreamed of her face. I could no longer see, but I could feel the thousands of small legs creating an empire atop the terrain of my future corpse. They crawled in and around every orifice of my body, becoming spelunkers charting the newly discovered cave system that was my insides. The small tapping of their legs and fluttering of their wings became ever present. As the spelunkers reached the dried rivers of blood extruding from my wounds, they created their first settlements. The mothers built nests of eggs, to sustain the town’s population. Other spelunkers, still living the nomadic lifestyle, moved from place to place, sampling every tissue that could be torn away.

I no longer felt physical pain, but the knowledge of being consumed creates a sort of dread far worse. As the night grew darker, I became we, and the individuality of my own existence became inseparable from theirs. The giant still loomed over us, I’m sure, and had witnessed the birth of this tiny civilization. 

It is a very uncomfortable notion to be aware of your own consumption. I was becoming less by the second, and could do nothing to stop them. The spelunkers gorged themselves with an insatiable hunger, and I- no, we, created the cradle of civilization that would kickstart this small history. The Euphrates river ran from the gorged out wound on our head down the cliff between chin and neck, slipping down into the abyss below us. The Tigris spouted out from the eye cavity of our right eye socket, and let the remains of our vision melt across the plains of our cheek. Babylonia, then, took form in the voracious crater left open below the fetor mountain. As the new capital of the world, the crater soon became populous, and grew into a developed nation. It attracted visitors from across the land, both residents of neighboring cities and immigrants from far off worlds. 

Some of these visitors were quite monstrous to us, and waged war on our Southern regions. Their planetary stature and highly technological weapons easilly tore down our defense systems, and began a genocide. Entire continents were shorn off of the mainland, and cast away to the outer reaches of space. Presumably, the planetary visitors devoured both the continents and the spelunkers inhabiting them. 

This continued until the dawn of the new age, when the visitors finally relented to our prayers. We thank you, god who reigns us from the heavens. The giant present at civilization’s birth has guided us through the dark ages, and sheperded in an era of prosperity. 

Though much less now, the planet remained alive. Alive? In what sense? What does that mean? We found ourselves pondering this unanswerable question as the dawn rose on our last day. Certainly, to be alive meant to be conscious, and present on Earth. But, would we not be, even as corpses, here after our supposed death? Perhaps it is the soul that is life. We certainly have those. Where will our souls go, then, after death? Can we actually ever die if our souls do not? From what we can remember from a time long ago, we know that the souls of humans and animals are distinctly different. But is any part of us still human? When ‘we’ were ‘I’? What is a human?

The giant is no human, but he still watches. Does he have a soul? Is the soul part of a moral compass? Is that why he spared us from the scorched fires of damnation that clawed so vigorously into our flesh? The giant must be there, we are sure. Even if we cannot see him with our eyes, or feel him on our fingertips. The giant was there at creation, and would be there long after the rapture. Divine beings do not have beginning or end.

Would we then consider the soul ‘divine’? Are we our own gods after all? Or does He have some gift beyond mortal comprehension, one which transcends any values set by this plane of existence? 

The curiosity was overwhelming to us. We simply had to find out, so we begged Him to strip us of our mortal flesh. Please, if your divinity grants you a soul, and that soul grants you sympathy, take mercy on this broken world. He does not answer us.

He doesn’t have to, on account of our fleeting existence. The divine do not have reason to interfere. We had already fallen from his grace quite literally, so this empty prayer only solidified to us that we had been forsaken.