Downhill

My sanity dangles before my eyes by a thread. It swings hypnotically like a pendulum. I wait for the thread to break. It should have broken long ago.

I know I'm seeing things, of course. I'm not delusional. Yet my sanity is there, clear as this fine spring day, sparkling like a disco ball in the harsh sunlight.

Gravel crunches beneath my feet, and that, at least, is real. As long as I hear that crunch I know I haven't stopped yet, and I can't stop if I want to reach the bottom before the impending darkness obscures the trail (and, more importantly, its edge).

My hand glides along the knotted rope strung along the rock face, and it, too, is beginning to feel like a thread.

I tear my eyes from my sanity before the distraction can prove fatal. Dust pales the brown of my boots, and if I stand still, I can almost imagine they're just an extension of the gravel, that I'm just an extention of the gravel, that when a little rock rolls too close to the edge and plunges into the unknown, I'll plunge with it.

Thoughts are dangerous, but they're all I have. They boil in my head under the sun's angry glare. I'm (almost) glad that the path is too narrow to sit.

The last water in my last bottle sloshes. I am Tantalus, everything I need so desperately just out of reach, and uselessly dramatic about it. Perhaps it's better if my sanity stays out of reach.

My quads burn and my femurs thud painfully against my knee caps with each step (what would my anatomy professor say if he could see me now?). I renew my grip on the rope (thread) and risk a glance into the abyss. The ground is much closer, so close that perhaps I could survive the fall, though I'm not eager to test that theory. I hug the rock and look back. The path rises sharply behind me (when did that happen?). It turns out that the path in front of me falls just as steep (almost as steep as the cliff). I shove my vertigo into a dusty corner at the bottom of my ming and continue on before the andrenaline wears off or the thread rips.

Each step is quicker than the last, and now I really could (probably) survive a fall, and I don't want it to end yet. I haven't soaked up enough the lush evergreens or the scraggly grasses or the mountains rising green and brown and regal on the other side of the valley. All these hours and miles and too many of them beige and crunchy and dusty gravel beneath my feet.

The insane urge to hike back up rises from the dredges of my mind, and I realize my sanity no longer glints before my eyes (where did I loose it?). The last of my survival instincts fights its way out of those same dredges (or maybe different ones). For a moment I don't know who will win, but my feet decide instead. They ignore my protesting muscles and bones and carry me forcefully down the mountain.

The trees at the bottom grow closer and closer and tower over me as the path evens out and widens. I collapse onto a rock opposite the brown trailhead sign and gulp down the last of my water as the sun paints the sky. The weight of my backpack settles painfully onto my shoulders and I shrug it onto the ground.

I've only been gone three days (two nights with only a bedroll between me and the unforgiving earth) but I barely recognize parking lot (I could blame it on the dimness but it wasn't much lighter when I set out at dawn), and it takes me a moment to find my car despite the general emptiness.

I throw my backpack in the trunk and when I reach the driver's seat every thread holding me up snaps and I collapse. I watch the sun set and rise again before I start my car and let it escort me back to some semblance of reality.