Mountain of Sand

I kept climbing. Every once in a while, the guy ahead of me would turn around, ski poles in hand, and proclaim, "We're nearly there! I can see the summit– but, its still a while away." I kept searching the outline of his face for some sort of cruel joke, but there was none; his face was blinded by the sun that shone directly into my eyes.

By now, I was on all fours, climbing through the fine soft sand like an animal. My lips were parched, I needed water; yet, I kept climbing. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a thought kept nagging at me, there is no water up there. There was no water up there, how could there be? I was climbing a 300 foot monster of sand. There are no ponds or lakes on top of sand dunes.

What was I doing? I barely had a clue. But I kept following him. Who was he anyway? He looked like a maniac from back here, bent on getting to the top with or without me. He was my only ticket out of this desert though, so I kept following him, he was bound to go downwards again, and I would be on his heels. That, or I would be lying somewhere close by, already being covered up by the gusts of sand blowing up around me.

He turned around again, "...just a few hundred more meters." Oh, great! Didn't he say that five minutes ago too? I had no idea. I had lost track of time. How had I gotten myself into this? Where was I anyway?

I kept climbing. Each step was one step forward and a half step backwards. I'd move forward, get buried a little in the sand, then I'd move forward again, get sucked in again. I could see why camels needed pumps on the soles of their feet. I didn't even have ski poles like that maniac ahead of me. I would have cursed him to hell if I didn't have to follow him there myself to get out of this conundrum.

I looked up, I could see nothing more than a shadow falling over me. Him, again. This time he was close enough for me to see him smiling. It was a joke after all. He extended his hand, I grabbed it and pulled myself up, sand spiraling down the crevices that had formed in my clothes. He patted me on the back. Here we are, just a few more meters. We walked side by side and I saw what we had climbed for. We were at the top. It was beautiful. It was not just the top of this dune but also the whole valley. Hundreds and hundreds of hills, small and large surrounded us. None was larger though. 347 feet high, he declared proudly as if he had won a bet against himself, as if he had beaten his own guess by inches. Good for him.

We rested a few moments, he produced a bottle of water. Curse him for saving it and bless him too. After a few more looks around and having formed an odd expression of guilt on my face, I took it all in.

Atop this magnificent sand dune, with its sheer drop on one side and its sloping ridges of unbearable pain on the other, I realized that now that I was here, there was no direction to go but down. Slowly we began to jog down, kicking up sand as we went. Hurtling, we went down the same slope that we had climbed so painstakingly. Like a kid, having forgotten the agony of moments past, I laughed out all the pain that had coursed through my veins on the way up.