A Poe Fire on the Mountain

A character who meets with Cyrus. Remember Cyrus?

 

A Poe Fire on the Mountain.

 

Poe stood on the top of a mountain, his headed lifted to the sky—endless horizons of fallen and carved rock beneath him. Cracked and swollen divides heaved up from the descending mountains surface, forming scars like streams that pushed on endlessly—scorned earth. With the veil of ice stretching beyond estimation in every direction, on the wind, sight was limited to what air seemed to allow. As if he pulled himself by his rope into space, the sun seemed warmer—larger and brighter. And still, the wind spoke up of the cold, betraying the eyes, and sending snow ascensions tearing frozen earth through the air. He couldn’t shake the thought that the snow’s movements were in fact frozen life—although life had not known such a climb. 

“No thoughts up here but mine.”

Poe mumbled, rubbing the sides of his face, which stung at the motion, cracking under the pressure of the cold wind. The beard he formed, woolen and full, seemed to promise more than it could deliver. Ice accumulated in layers upon it. The mountain claimed dominance and territory for all breathing things, be woolen or not.

“On this man I mark a mountain”

Poe said, stunned and rocking on his feet, suddenly taken in by the vastness of such a creation. As he stood atop a truly clear precipice, some point of clarity came that he had been working towards since the very beginning. Above a turned, sharp, crag of stone Poe stood.  If he allowed it all to sink in he felt he might faint. Yet the glissading streams of white that tore at his clothes kept him alert, tightening his skin against the speeding winds. Small hands worked and kept him alert. He began to understand his surroundings, un-furling his arms he gained his balance against the streaming winds.

With his bearings locked, he turned to see his preceding path up the difficult incline. He spotted his tow ropes, his tooling’s, his footwork of humanity—the skill to scale. Lowering himself to one knee, he glassed the lower rocks, finding that at some point his vision was limited. Nothing could be discerned from another. The wind kept things moving in a blinding way. So is life…Poe thought as he packed away the binoculars—somehow…it all gains ground.  

“Memory is all that lasts me.”

Poe said after awhile of thought, nodding to himself. Something in him leapt to get out, as if he had un-caged something within him, and for a moment he felt he might weep, staring back towards his ascension. Something was free in him—something that was coming out as laughter. Stretching out his arms into either direction he balanced himself against the wind of sheers. Laughter erupted from him at once. He laughed like a madman, with a grin that seemed formed from years of practice, as all joy suddenly seemed possible.

“What is the world after all?!!”

He screamed, possessed by his feelings. He screamed it again, laughing into the wind. The rock beneath him made no move to respond—but at the moment… dazzling tornadoes of ice began to erupt across the mountain walls. One after another, hailed and summoned from the austere blue sky. A tremendous storm was coming across the rock, far away, miles down, yet building up in every direction. Five fingers of ice seemed to form, ripping straight up into the sky.  It was if Poe stood calmly upon the palm of God and each finger was begging to close.

And Poe felt he had been given his answer.

 

“That’s some conversation we have…” Poe mumbled to the wind.

His parka was incased in ice. Buckshot patterns of snow marked his adventure, his mishaps, and his falls. Five inches or more had accumulated on his boots of steel and wool, with skin of Gore-Tex. The mountain clung to his legs, as if forming a greater gravity to await the rest. It was slowing him. It was tiring him.

“Man in me must not be broken.” He vowed smiling on, greater and brighter he seemed to grow in his own estimates. He watched the dancing gusts of spinning ice send rock breaking loose, and twirling off the mountains face. With it he saw death billowing and plowing on that air. All danger was lit in beautiful clarity by the sun, all grace, and death, and ice.

And there, split and rising like the face of the moon, was a chasm directly to the south. Snow was venting and hissing from its opening and the ground around it. What seemed so holy there, standing directly above the chasm, was not known to Poe, only that it was. He thought he might be staring into the fallen grave of a giant. He fantasized that he might be at the religious mass for the giant, and the only patron at that.

The blood on his beard had frozen entirely, and seemed nothing more than a natural hair color. As he moved from the north face, to the east face, to the west, and back to the giant’s grave, he felt the inklings of the last man alive. The last of some long line, cast forth into the sun—to stand atop the mountain above all creation. And he thought about all the things that were like mountains. And so many things were like mountains to him.

“I am” he whispered to himself

“Bound to this” he said louder, laughing, and grasping at the ice bindings about his legs. Rising tides of fire, of heat, wound up in his chest and gut. He was gaining back his strength-a reprisal that somehow he knew would last.

He looked up, at the zenith of sun light, to witness the suns true recuperation of the world around him—ice storms of magnitude, with cliffs of death beyond measure. Somehow the existence of all grandeur, such as this, dazzling in awesome fury, gave great forgiveness for the god that made it all. A pardon was finally surrendered instead of Poe’s offering of fear. And he stood watching the blizzard, the sun, and the ice that made claim. And who was there to forgive…after all? Poe thought.

 

“Such as I am an explorer, to be realized...”

And with that, he buried his hook to the rock.

Author's Note

How does this resound?

Reviews

[Juliette Cross]

i've always wondered about that moment, is it surrender, or survival of something like sanity? i've always wondered why people only respond to monumental moments, to see the truth of their lives. i've always been fascinated with people that can transport me. and there is a cool breeze tonight and this story made it turn cold and i had to get a blanket. imagine!
well, he becomes one. but is he full? he is all alone. "What is the world afterall?" he was humbled but i don't mind that he will die. and that is the beauty man. that's why i love reading what you write. i feel more than just for that one speck.

[Jerrica Benton]

i take it you don't mean cyrus, the gang leader in 'the warriors' movie, did you?

i could not get into this piece no how. and when i tried, as i didn't honestly remember these people (if i ever knew them at all) i felt like a tardvark.

sorry.