The Story Spark was – Life Happens. The prompt I chose was: An encounter that changes your life. We had 25 minutes to write.
A Mountain Excursion
It wasn’t hard for me to understand. Everything worked in a logical progression. I was going on a field trip to the mountains with my friend. He had suggested this trip a long time ago.
“Let’s go to the mountains and try to climb to the top. I’m not much of a climber, so I hesitated for a long time. I don’t mind being in high places; it’s getting there that creates the anxiety. I can stand on a roof and walk around on it, but when climbing a ladder to get there or climbing down, I get very nervous.
But I was convinced that it was time to conquer my fear and join my friend on the climb. “What could possibly go wrong?” he said. He was going to be there with me.
So I went. I should have listened to my inner voice, which said, “You are out of your mind.”
So there we were at the bottom of the mountain that it took 5 hours to get to. According to the map, which my friend forgot to bring, it should have taken 2 hours. But he assured me that he knew the way by heart.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know the way by head.
We looked up at this towering piece of rock and couldn’t find a way to ascend it. There were no paths. There were no handholds by which to rock climb. Pretty much sheer rock from the bottom where we were and midway up where there might have been some path or access to follow.
My friend suggested that we walk around the base of this mountain and see if there was another way up. He was sure there was.
So we circumnavigated it. As we got close to our starting point, we found a cave. Ronald (I’m sorry, did I forget to mention his name?) said we should go in. “Maybe there is an elevator or stairs that will get us to the path that’s up there.”
As ridiculous as it seemed, I agreed to enter the cave.
I’m sure you can imagine what animals or creatures reside inside caves on a mountain that has no access, just waiting for dinner options to appear at their table.
We didn’t have to imagine.
Suffice it to say, we made a hasty retreat. Lucky for us, other delicacies said animal in the cave found more interesting.
We finally decided that climbing a mountain was not something that was meant to be for us. At least, on this day.
We got back in the car and carefully plotted our way home. I should say Ronald did. It only took 7 hours this time.
As I said, this trip shouldn’t have been hard for me to understand; after all, it was Ronald. You would think this brush with death, or should I say something’s dinner, would be an encounter that would change my life.
For those of you who know my relationship with Ronald, you probably already surmised the answer to that one.
