The toe of my boot nudged against an errant piece of slate. It slid, tumbling down the mountain’s face, down to the waters below, the ones that would grind it down to the texture of the fine pebbles that line the seashore.
It’s one of those weird moments in which you are suddenly made aware of your mortality, of how close you are to death. Walking the fine lines between the living and the perished.
The fog encroaches, seeping your body in cool moisture you chose to wear cotton and now you suffer at the way it pulls the heat from the surface of your skin.
You are cold. Chilled to the icy temperature of glacial rivers you stand, perched above the alter of the world.
And you can see it all. You can see the ripples of the water, the whitecaps of the waves, the spires of trees that tremble beneath the weight of all that exists like great gothic cathedrals, ringing silent in the night.
And suddenly you feel small. You feel vulnerable. Eclipsed within the weight of this knowledge you stand, your boots clinging to something solid, your mind reaching out for something real.
And you are in awe. In awe amidst creation. In awe amidst the intricate lining of the stone beneath your feet.
Here, perched not at the end but at the beginning, viewing the world from the places of the gods, secreted away amongst the landscapes of time.
And you think about how one misstep will send you tumbling to your demise. You think about how one slip of the tread of your boot will make you into the fog that hovers over the earth. But you do not falter. You stand strong.
Because this world is too good to let go of. It is too pure to let it slip away, like the mist between your fingers. You are suddenly aware of how alive you are, and your body quakes with the adrenaline of knowledge and of truth.
I could stay here forever, constantly tormented by my nearness to death. A number I’m unwilling to gamble on. This is no place for taking bets.
And yet it is. It is a place for remembrance. For humanity. For those moments in which we cry, uttering mournful requiems unto the earth. It is poetry. It is lyric. It is song and it is story it is the telling of our world.
It is my reminder that we are one step away from collapse, and one step away from life. Choose wisely. You have but one life to live.