I’m climbing this mountain to reach the top. I climb up narrow paths of rocks and dirt. Up and up, one foot after the other. I climb up so I can look down. Look down and scream. Sweating, and tired, I scream at the valley. My echo screams back.
For a lingering moment, my voice ricochets across the landscape. It returns just enough times to remind myself that no one is listening. On top of this mountain, I listen as my words meld into the cutting wind and my sentences dash across pine trees and rivers. I yell to be heard, but the moment doesn’t last. Up here, I am answered by myself. Always by myself.
My voice may turn the heads of those below, but few care about the source or the reason. My voice is a momentary pop in a world of horrible indifference, skidding out on some stranger’s driveway miles away. My energy is spent. I try again, laughing, screaming, and crying. I breathe deep and bay into the world like a lost wolf.
There are only so many times my voice can echo. On hands and knees, I beg the winds that silence me. With strained vocal cords, I shout. To stop means to return to silence. To return to a world that marches to a rhythm of dead voices. On this mountain, for a lingering moment, I am heard. Not by those below, or the birds above, but by myself.
And then I begin my descent.
Falco's Words 