Higher and higher

This was the country of dead things, of circles worn thin in the sky by birds of prey, lazing and looping out of genetic habit rather than the prospect of something among the rocks yet to be killed. Were the heartbeats of tiny things still tap-tap-tapping their fear in the grass, they would have been stopped by the swoop of talons and beak. The rock, the steppes and the shelves, all yielded nothing except bits of scrub, roots gently grinding the lichen and the half-food. This was his favourite mountain, and he climbed it whenever he could.

Far in front of his gaze were the foothills---rippling away, gradually greener---towards the calm of the distant horizon. Though his eyes were steady the undulations seemed to be heading off away from him, like waves. These hills quivered motionlessly; they were petrified by the sight of the jagged mountain, an axe-head stuck in the side of the earth. Trees rooted in the grey rock separated on the hilltops and clumped inbetween, as if the lower landscape were covered with a thick pile of green, stubbly carpet that its maker had not fitted so as to account for the gradient-in-gradient.

The wind blew past him. It buffeted against his boots, ran along his trousers and jacket, caressing his torso and shirt before ruffling his hair playfully and moving on towards the cliff face. The air it carried past him was too clean. It was as dead as the rocks around him. Odourless and without body: like distilled water, yes, but with an ionized smell from the thick storms, one of which was congealing towards the north face of the huge crag, clutching its side with clammy fingers. Ozone, oxygen, nitrogen: the minerality of healthy air without the pollution of organic diseases. It took heat from him, but proferred these other things in return.

Two hundred yards above him were his supplies, where he had left them. Crampons and a pick, grey metal, a brushed matt surface that matched the buckles on the rucksack that contained them. Recovering them from the ledge where they lay, inert and useless, was a difficulty he no longer turned his thoughts to.

His top three shirt buttons were undone. Their loss was a failure in an art, a skill: the teasing of a clasp through a narrow eye into wider space beyond. The securing of his garment to itself with a mechanical trickery, and the failure of it was a microcosm of his much greater problem, which eclipsed also the neglect of his climbing gear. If he could only notice the mess of his shirt, with his head bent forwards, far forwards, too far forwards, then maybe he would have noticed the irony of lost grip, and smiled grimly with the mouth now parted like the door to an empty house. But.

His stare, taking in the whole landscape with its fixity, could no longer divert itself towards the particular of buttons and fastenings, but looked out now from the mountain he had embraced like a mother, a lover. Its sides had only moments ago passed him swiftly, like the summary of a life story. The quick, cold rush of wind had not chilled him as much as the sudden stop. The adoration that he had felt for this dead thing had been repayed in its own bleak coin. For this had been his favourite mountain, and he had climbed it whenever he could.