On Beauty (1 of 4)

A free-writing exercise that turned into a four-part, loosely connected story. I’m a big fan of letting the mind loose in creative endeavors to see where it leads. This chapter was written in one sitting and only edited for typos and minor word-echos and clarifications.

Photo (cc) barynyz on Flickr

The path was long and winding but you could not see far ahead. The trees and brush had grown tight against against the trail, but the bare dirt was so worn and packed beneath his feet that it held fast against the the vegetation on either side. Perhaps animals still used the path, but while it was once heavily trod by people they had long since ceased coming this way. The leaves and limbs pulled against his coat as he hunched and clawed forward.

A sharp jag of blue finally peeked through from far ahead. It gave him a renewed strength, a renewed determination, and he pushed the final branches out of his way. The blue grew with each step, the green finally relenting until he stood in the open.

The sky stretched far and clear into the horizon. He stopped at the sight to take it in. The trail wound around the edge of a cliff, but now only gray rock guarded him on his left. To his right was nothing. Space. Falling free and wide into the canyon below. He looked down the canyon, up across the far side, and past mountain top after mountain top into the far distance.

It was so stark, so empty, and so beautiful. Behind him the trees hid the path he had followed. The gray and craggy mountains made the path he fought against for the past hours seem lush. The leaves and branches that had been a hindrance now seemed rich and full of life. Life that refused to go where he now stood.

He leaned against the rock and watched the lazy clouds roll across the sky. Simple and clean and far above any influence he had but to watch. Somewhere down below he could make out the faint rush of water, but it, too, seemed detached and impersonal. The scene before him drowned him, lost in its expanse. He felt small and yet part of all that he saw. He looked at the distant peaks and knew he could never reach them if he tried, yet they touched him at their distance as if he stood upon them. In a way they touched him more than if they were truly under his feet. He took a deep breath of the cool air, taking it into his belly and through his nose. He absorbed all he could of the moment, the small slice of the world, from the tiny corner in which he stood.

He kicked a pebble down the canyon. It clicked and clacked as it tumbled, until it was silently out of sight and hearing. He smiled and committed all he saw to memory, willing it to be a part of him he would never forget. A place to which he could return no matter where he went from here onwards.

He stood up from the rock and continued on around the bend and away from the open, impersonal, majestic sky.