The last mountain peak had crumbled over the night, its death witnessed only by the crows and starlings and a meandering cloud. We first encountered it the morning after, peering from our streaked window unsure why the view had changed.
A few hours on an unhurried train and a crumbling hiking trail later, we reached the mountain's corpse.
We couldn't identify the rocks, we only took photos of the boulders left behind so someone else could autopsy. It didn't assuage our guilt. We combed through the ashy-red dust clouds and cleaned off a few shrubs.
The hole in the sky rained a viscous, painful nothing upon us, upon this little patch of the world.
We took the air in hand, the cold empty air, and with a breath of disbelief we climbed the mountain.
We climbed what was no longer there.
Images used:
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/236 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/7941044@N06/6254852684 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/132795455@N08/18382776792 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/8749778@N06/15384554241
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