High Up There with No Way Down

High Up There with No Way Down

A Story by B. Stearns
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Everest Tragedy (inspired piece)

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He was in my group, and I got to know him better than the others. There was some unsaid connection, maybe something like intimates, but I could never name it. Perhaps it was the silent suffering we both shared amongst the brutal hike. I belonged to him though, just as dozens of others probably did as well. To college roommates and teammates that he touched with curiosity, and to his mother that wants him home. 

To afternoon calls I would get irritated of, hearing my parents' voice on the other side of the phone. It was something I never missed outside of college.

 He has learned differently. He has learned better, responding with some sort of joy outside of himself. I am sure his mother has left him over thirty voicemails in this past month.

I would not consider myself anyone special. 

Here he was, standing at the top of the world, heaven’s gate, the place full with beauty and full with the dreams of wronged high school students. My dreams. What I coveted most, even on the dark nights of drinking too much alcohol to hate myself, on the nights of midlife crises and existential dread. To the open eyed child waiting to explore the world and dig his roots deep into the soil, letting himself follow the wind and ever so often scrape his knees on the sidewalk curb; only to be given s****y circumstances of a life. At some point you really start to believe it was your fault to begin with. And you know, maybe it was.

I was now twenty-nine, and up here with the beautiful views, on the pedestal of human existence. I felt exhausted to the bone, I wanted to sit and lay down. I never did though, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get up. 

I looked at him, only a few feet away from me. He was looking down the slopes, eye bags and all, but he had a sparkle there. He took off his oxygen mask for a quick moment to save some supply and to also save the moment. He gestured for me to come over next to him and do the same. I tried to wrap my gloved fingers around the plastic, but I was too cold to get a grip. He smiled and gently took it off for me, at least for as gentle frostbitten fingers could do. There was no air up here, only the thinnest of atmospheres, yet he made an exception. He took in a breath, and I took one at the same time in sync. 

There was no purer love than just simply breathing the Earth in to breathe the Earth in. 

His hair was covering his face in the wind, he had never looked more beautiful than that moment. Something in that tore away at me.

I thought of him as a childhood friend, even though I hadn’t known him for more than a couple of years. Suddenly I had random distant memories of us laughing our heart out in the grass. He was there with me to step in the puddle of water that always flooded the street near my childhood home. He was there to help me push my car home when it broke down at sixteen. He was there with me bantering in confusion of how taxes worked, and he was there to comfort me in the loss of my pet. 

There is no purer love than one of a child’s.

It was harder for me to breathe, even though it was very subtle, but the sensation hit me in the face like cold snow particles, and the heavy slap of wind. 

Perhaps it was loneliness, and perhaps it was the extreme lack of oxygen getting to my brain. I felt like I was dying.

To the storm in the distance I just couldn’t seem to recognize fully in my mind, but my gut felt it. It was a lot, everything at once. Somewhere mixed between fear, selfishness, admiration, and a longing for home, there was a need to cry. I hadn’t cried once in the month we had been here, and to strange despair and disappointment, there were no tears now either. My body was too tired for tears.

I wasn’t moving, and I was tempted to stay there. He pulled my oxygen mask back over my mouth and nose then looked at me and gave me a solemn and unconditional smile. I tried my best to smile back. It was time to get back down, and fast because my oxygen tank was low.

The storm rumbled in the distance.

© 2022 B. Stearns


Author's Note

B. Stearns
Inspired piece of reading Everest tragedies. Ending and relationship is free for interpretation. Feel free to leave comments as well.

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Added on January 29, 2022
Last Updated on January 29, 2022
Tags: inevitable, hiking, mountains, everest, longing, home, loneliness, exhaustion, frinedship, love