Reach Out and Touch Them

Grassy hills stretched out in front of me, rising eventually into sharp cliff edges. Beyond those loomed treacherous mountains of jagged stone. I had been walking for a week, and the bulk of my journey still lay before me. I had to get through the mountains.

There were two safe passes through this area, and I was gambling that the shorter, steeper way would be navigable by the time I got to it. So far, there had been rain every day for the past month. I would inevitably slip and fall to my death if the rain didn’t abate before I was through the foothills.

On the other hand, if I waited, I would run out of food. There were very few edible plants in this area, and hardly any animals to speak of. The extremes of the weather kept everything small and wiry—plants were woody and animals were wary. You could spend a day hunting down enough food to eat for an hour’s worth of energy. I had carried a lot in with me, but it would only last for a single attempt.

I was walking alongside a riverbed right now, and the water was churning with mud. Rain and mountain soil coursed like an angry vein. Before I knew what was happening, the ground in front of me fell away and dissolved into the rushing water. Grass and stones vanished into the swirl, and then I was under. My feet were trapped by rocks or branches that were crashing and rolling along the bottom of the channel.

Underwater, everything felt gritty, and my lungs were giving out. I yanked, but it was no use. I was stuck. The mountains had beaten me before I ever got near them.