An Excerpt

And then, like the icing on the cake, she appeared. One minute, she was a pale shadow and the next she was just…there, that final, majestic pile of rock, welcoming you as you drove towards the little town adorning her feet. I used to think that referring to a mountain as a ‘she’ was a male ego thing.

But this mountain is infinitely feminine with every angular curve, slope and sweep. When she first came into sight, she had her head in the clouds – literally – and as I stared and stared (and stared some more), it began to seem to me that she had bared her soul to anyone who wished to read her tale, conveniently allowing them to adapt it and make it – and thus, her – their own.

To me she is a creature of myths, some ethereal beauty who was married to Land in ancient times when the ties of honour were binding for life, and so she remains a loyal wife. But her heart belonged to another – her soul mate – who dwells high up in the heavens. Land clings desperately to her, but he never quite manages to bring her down to his level.

Her True Love on the other hand knows he possesses her as completely as she does him. His confidence is displayed in the almost casual gifts he sends her to remind her of his affection: now a crown of clouds, now a feathery caress of mist, now a veil of sparkling snow. But each makes her glow in the way only a woman well-cherished can.

She is a paradigm of the unattainable, and that is why Man is so bewitched by her, so eager to climb to her highest peak. But even when they finally reach there, if they stood still and listened they would hear her laughter in the wind, gently chiding, maybe even mocking them. For if Land could not conquer this spirit, then how does a mere man to believe he has?

And just as she finished telling me this tale, I looked away and saw that we had arrived.

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From one of my favourite writers. Original here