the dead mouse and the mountain

[mudshark]

We don’t do much outdoor shit back home. My son sees himself as a fat nerd, and I’m pretty much a pot smoking shift worker riding a fork lift truck. The decision to walk up Ben Nevis, the largest mountain in Great Britain, was more of a joke between us, than a well planned aim for the vacation.
But I had just received a phone call from back home that hes pet had died. and I wanted to breake it to him on top of the mountain. Just to show him some respect, I guess.
So when we stood there, at the bottom of the this little hill, we where pretty cool about it. Turns out the real mountain was the one behind the little hill. And even though Sebastian’s memory is not like the ones of other kids, he did remember me saying that I could do it.
I had packed up the necessary equipment. To small bootles of water, raincoats, a camera, our black and yellow football hoods in knitted wool and two hard boiled eggs. The next 7,5 hours was going to be a new experience for the both of us.
To make it a short story, we headed upwords. Got in to different kinds of weather. Vaded through snow and rain. Inside and outside of various kinds of cloud systems. Ate the goddamn eggs long before the halfway line. Thread rocky paths of ancient warriors, and finally made it to the top.
It was high fives and cold hughs.

It was a flat land of rocks scattered allover. Some 20 people walking around in the blizzard. Every single item we had brought with us was soaking wet. The camera died the day after, and was resurrected on the bathroom floor next to the mobile phone.
We sat on, well… a rock, and looked down in the glen. Hundreds of smaller mountains was raging below us. Probably. We couldn’t see shit as we sat inside a cloud. And I opened a bar of Snickers and broke it in twine.
We got some bad news from back home, I said, trying to hold my head up in the wind.
Last night, when you sat crying by the Boothie fire, Rattata went up to cheese heaven.
He looked at me. And I think I felt pretty good. Cause I smiled kinda sad at him and layed my hand on his shoulder. Just held him like that. The rain left no alibies.

[Nazz]

Dig the raw grimness. "..sat inside a cloud."-- like you climbed up somewhere near cheese heaven also. That was good. Leaves you in some suspense at the end too.

[mtmynd]

good read, muddy... honest and personal. keep it goin'...

[Barry]

What a very moving story. And what a great man and father you clearly are. To make a sacrifice in the compassionate interest of your son...None could ask to do more. Well written and well done.

Peace,
Barry

[SmileGRL]

mud, your kid will have memories no other person has. you're a way cool dad. and you wrote it down in a way that made me grin.

[mudshark]

Thanks!
i had no idea you had read this.
even sweeter to read your words then. now. tonight.

anyway october is coming and the prosess of writing will be
a part of the prosess of living.
i always hated october.

[hester_prynne]

I felt like I was there.....somehow.
Moving little big story.
H

[judih]

enjoy september while it still enjoys us, mudshark,
the better to see us thru october
-besides, november comes soon and brings enough scorpio to light our fires

[stilltrucking]

"the sweetest thing in the world is the child's belief that his father knows everything" JK

It not so much October as such, but the fall that makes me melancholy. After the fall comes the spring and since I turned sixty nine years ago I say the same silent prayer to myself. "Oh lordy just let me live to see another spring coming on" In south Texas the prayer does not mean as much as up north after a bitter winter.
In Texas spring lasts about two weeks. Then it is hot and sweltering.

pardon the ramble
much enjoyed reading your post.