Rumblings

You stand at her base, almost. It’s hard to know where exactly she starts – or ends, for that matter -- being always false first, summit after summit. Buttressed out, you think of her as Notre Dame, even though you’ve never actually seen the cathedral but for aged slides. (Why is it, anyway, that yellowed slides seems closer to reality than glossy feature spreads?) And you remember sitting atop her, being screamed at by a pika and seeing boy scouts on the next ridge practicing mirrored distress signals. You were relieved when you figured out it was only practice.

Because you had nothing to help, to offer. No rope. No crampons or pitons. Only Advil, and scissors, gauze and Ace bandages…the kind you played with as a kid, securing all the maladies of Siberian Husky and Fievel stuffed animals. You were alone that day, as you always were then – there, up top. You went as far away as you could without disappearing. Close to the edge, yet something brought you back. Maybe in the end it was the mountains themselves.

 
She rumbles -- a gigantic stomach, coming to eat you up. If she could move, you know she would. But those buttresses get in the way, tripping her up like a woman’s petticoat and hoop-skirt -- anchoring her down in the talus rubble of ages. And you understand, right then, why cultures have found their gods on high – you understand why they have sacrificed and been terrified and worshiped themselves into submission. You understand why they have imposed sentience. Raising your eyes for a second, away from your line on the water, and rise forms beginning -- streaky white veils her with rain and for a few moments, she cannot see.

And you’re safe. 

 
And you find something up here too – an unknown something before which to stand in awe, and something that makes your stomach drop with the heat of fear – crawling over your back and up to the hairs at the base of your skull…the ones that always stay short and tangled.

You find something here -- even, to hate.

And only here do you find bits of truth -- treasured small polka dotted torpedoes she keeps hidden, like Gimli’s treasure hoard. Perhaps that’s why she’s so angry. But you put them back, the few you caught. And quickly, too, after you’d held their cold bodies, their beating heart. After you’d looked directly into their strange eyes and wondered what you looked like to them. Knowing that you weren’t nearly so beautiful to them as they to you…asking pardon for what you’ve just done.

The wind blows harder and harder until it rains. And the stomach still growls -- as if you’ve done something wrong, as if you’ve trespassed.

But you saw no signs, no warnings -- only, a moose in the willows. And maybe, that was it...