The Mountain

After I got to the top of the mountain I took it all in, scanning the three-hundred-and-sixty degrees of view. And then I turned around and began to walk down.

Or that’s what I thought.

Even though I should have been walking down, it soon became clear that I was walking back up to the top.

I turned around on the path and again started my descent. 

Soon after, an unsettled feeling settled. I stopped for moment, and saw: ahead of me was the path to the top, the peak of the mountain.

I looked behind me. There was the path that quite clearly led down, obviously the way I needed to go.

So I began to walk down the mountain.

But it wasn’t the right way.

Because I was going down, it meant that I was going back up to the top, because I was going down. It was like being stuck in an Escher, or a nursery rhyme.

I thought about it very hard. And then I started walking back up the path that led to the top.

I went all the way, right to the very peak. Once I had composed myself, stilled all thought, shaken off the mites of my confusion, I took a deep breath and started to head down the mountain.

I was heading down the mountain!

Or that’s what I thought.

vss #19