Vindication via Val d’Aosta

EKPHRASIS WRITING TASK

One more time, just once more he wanted to witness the view from the top.

A white and clear sky was to be expected today. Switzerland was heading into spring, and nothing out of ordinary was to expected rocks rumble underneath his feat. Unless one was to look at the mountain overlooking Rhine Falls that day.

The rubble that was lifted from empty footprints gently tumbled off the ledge. Chalky and shriveled hands gripped on to the next ridge. The dry flesh that held onto the stone helped stable and support each seize and climb. His arms trembling from having performed this process countless times, their muscles aching in agonizing pain. As he tilted his neck upwards, his eyes staring at the darkened morning sky, waves of distilled clouds absorbing the water vapor being puffed out from his dried and pale lips. The mountain peak was so close. The vertex left a bold statement on his mind. The slowness of time, the reality of the ever-present, in a world where nothing stops. In this moment, he decided to push on, but it was this eagerness, that built up motivations, that vision he had replayed countless times, that had led him to that fatal move.

With his body completely upright, eyes sparkling with excitement and teeth gritted he pushed forward to the next ridge that barely peeked out into the atmosphere. His left arm was pathetically attempting to grab on. He felt a sudden yet soft momentum shift underneath him. He didn’t need to look down to know that the platform his feet were barely touching was beginning to corrode away. His head and body now violently trying to find a gateway out of the inevitable moment. His eyes, now widened, locked onto a moderately distant “grip” like outlet inside a rugged rock and he began to resettle his feet in preparation to gander a leap. He bent his legs to the slightest acute angle possible with the utmost care, closed his eyes tight and his feet released from a tangible surface.

In the air, his senses heightened. The soft gushing of minute whiffs of wind, the crashing of water over the climax of the mountain, the stone-cold touch of the thinning oxygen wrapping around his flesh, nostrils flaring, trying to get as much O2 as possible and mouth assisting the nose when inhaling and open wide in anticipation. The very next second, his feet hit something solid. He sighed in relief as he opened his eyes ready to see that he has safe. But instead, his legs were in the same place he had seen them last. Resorting to an even worse sense of panic, he darted and flailed his body the check what was wrong. When he looked to his right, he realized what had happened. He had never let go of his initial handle. Alongside a wave of concentrated frustration and pure fear that had embodied his very soul the ground also came over with a quiver of hesitation and gave way. A juncture of thoughts rushed into his brain as he felt gravity flip inside his stomach. He was most definitely, without a doubt falling.

Even as he was falling it was the beauty of the mountain he looked at. This was one thing he was instructed to never do. To always be conscious of your surroundings, to analyze your landing zone, and find the optimal place break the fall to recover your “wings”. But it was his dream to reach the top, a goal he had always and would never cease admiring. To once again look over and witness the crashing water, the copious amounts of green forestation bordering the view and the mixture of the aqueous stream mixing with shore. Two substances joined as one, a unison.

Expeditiously, without a second to spare, his body slammed against a flat out-hanging of rock. His body bluntly bounced, like a baseball squelching and nestling into wet grass. His neck backlashed and back arched for a split second before he, as a whole, slumped back down horizontally. The fall wasn’t high, roughly 10 meters, but on such a surface, the damage had been dealt. His eyes never left that peak, but his vision slowly darkened, darkened … black.

One more time, just once more he wanted to witness the view from the top.