Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

A short story 24-Jun-2005 At 9:21:38 PM Tav

Message

The wind strokes my hair, trying to calm me, and two wedged tailed eagles circles overhead making sure I don't do anything 'irrational'. It would seem after ten years, the land still remembers me. Ten years. It was ten years ago that I last sat here. I needed those air borne guards then, standing on top of a 6 pitch sheer cliff, I wasn't as mindful of the edge then. Tears stream down my face as I stare rigidly at it for who knows how long, it gives new meaning to the term 'the line between life and death'. This is where he fell out of grace, out of life and into the sky.

We decided to meet at the peak to photograph the sun rising over the other peaks and then have breakfast there. There wasn't any danger in the scheme really; it was an easy hike up the walking path to the top and plenty of space to sit. Excited, I ran most of the way with the food, saying I'd wait for him at the top. It didn't occur to me he'd walk around to the cliff's edge and solo the last pitch or so to surprise me, he knew it was an easy climb for him after all and the pre-dawn light gave good view of the holds.

I stare at the edge and everything else blurs into insignificance. It's now just me, the edge and beyond; like a timeline outlining the stages of life, death and beyond for anyone near enough to see. But no one else is here and the wind and eagles have conquered both worlds.

I sat there enjoying the feeling of new breaths after my lungs had recovered from exercise and wait. I heard sound on the cliff face but disregarded it as unimportant and strained to hear foot steps up the path behind me. My peace was shattered when the sun began to crown and his hand topped the ridge. I sat and watched as the two rose together. I beamed at the realisation that I am the only one to witness the impossible; two suns rising on the face of Earth, my sun and the world's sun. But it is unnatural for Earth to have two suns, and to re-establish the balance, fate removed the lesser. I watched as a look of startled knowing crossed the surface of my sun and see too late the rock crumbling beneath his hands. As he slips below his horizon I throw myself towards the edge and onto my stomach to cath him, but find mothing to grasp. Only a darkly knowing and accepting face greets my eyes from the depths of fate.

The silence. The silence I remember was unnatural too. I remember how I felt it, and how insulting it was. To lose that sun, the ground should have quaked and shattered, spewing forth the vibrations of a thousand drums. The winds should have converged and screamed the mass requiem of nature and the birds should have howled like their carnivorous brothers. Instead, the greater sun streaked the waking sky with triumphant rays and a wind trickled past me, softly laughing in my ear. The world didn't care because it still had its sun. But my body, soul and life, however, felt the loss and quaked, shattered and screamed its own requiem to fill the silence.