Also one step

Up…I must keep going up. If I stop now I might just seize to exist. This pain growing inside me will boil and boil until I will explode into a million of agonizing, rotting pieces.

In a corner of my mind a feeble self-preserving voice tells me to slow down, makes me aware that in this run up the steep hill I am starting to lose my breath, that each step is getting more dangerous and I am losing my balance more and more often. I half turn my attention to that voice and see the composed and disciplined girl from home. But home is so far away right now. There is only one thing that completely hogs my mind… I must keep going, up. I must never stop to think. Everything, the pain in my scratched and bleeding hands, the wind and the rain that are growing heavier with each step I take, the cold that is taking hold on me through the wet clothes, everything is a blur as I keep plunging forward in this desperate effort to escape my reality.

The abrupt halt sends me backwards and I hit the ground in a failed attempt to keep my balance. As I pick myself up and barely notice that I missed the edge by less than a step, I am painfully aware that this is the end of the road. There’s no more up from here. Below me lays a sharp steep stone wall. The giant strangely shaped rocks at the bottom seem no more than pebbles from here. I watch the green hills disappear in a foggy rain and try to make out our village and the river. No use. I’m cut off from all of it. Ice cold raindrops bite at my face and I can barely stand up as the wind tries to blow me over. Over… I don’t even have to take a step to fall. All I have to do is let go.

A smile crosses my face as the idea sinks in: There’s nowhere to go but down.

I turn around and take a step. It seems quite amusing to notice that the pain is gone.