The towers of rock stood, cold and grey-white, staring down at the winter wasteland, gusts of snow breaking over their peaks like great breakers on a distant shore. This was the quiet time, the sad time, when their companions – the trees and flowers of the high valley – withered and died at winter’s touch. Now only the snow moved, falling in great clumps and collecting, feet-thick, in the calm places where the howling wind could not reach. The bare branches of the forest clattered together lifelessly in the bitter gale, and not a soul, man nor beast, was seen to move among them.
But low, there was a man. He seemed as old as the mountains themselves, bracing himself against the driving blizzard. Had they been able to see his face, they would have seen a landscape as hardened and cracked as their own, hardened by many such winters and by the determination of old-age. Slowly, surely, the man moved forward. Each step seeming to take an incalculable amount of energy, he climbed ever higher towards his goal, the mountains his ever-silent companions. And there, tucked under the highest peak, a light so small that it was nearly snuffed out by oppression of the storm. But this light was the man’s world, his warmth, and his love, and ever ounce of his being strived to be one with it. The mountains watched with infinite curiosity at this speck of life amongst the devastation, and they prayed for his success.
But as he climbed higher, the man faltered. Each step was less sure than the last and his breathing was course in the harsh air, his ancient lungs complaining fiercely with each inhalation. With tremendous effort, his head lifted to gaze at the warm square of light hanging so close in the dim grey, and he seemed strengthened by it. With renewed resolve, the man planted his next step and continued on. Only a hundred yards now, the mountains could see. He was nearly there. With the last drop of his strength the man crossed the final distance. The man climbed the wooden step victoriously and at last relaxation seemed to take his body and the peaks sang at his triumph.
Reaching forward, the man placed his cracked hand on the warn and frosted doorknob. But there he stopped. His goal achieved, his energy spent, he could not go on, and as soft as the snow around him, the man fell. With his last breath the wind wailed with sorrow, the trees flailed in anguish, and the mountains trembled ever so slightly with despair. For they were alone again, and in all their ages this was the saddest time of all.
