Part 7: Politica del Carciofo
By
Joseph Devon
(Please note: This story is the seventh part of a series of stories beginning with, “Part 1: Second Choice,” and while it is designed to stand alone it does draw heavily on the foundation of characters and events that were created in “Part 1: Second Choice,” and continued through Parts 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Basically, I have to highly recommend that you start at “Part 1: Second Choice” and continue on in order.)
Matthew rolled over in his sleep. Something deep inside of him was telling him that it was time to wake up. With his eyes closed and his head encased in slumber he thought that maybe there was a pot of coffee on in the kitchen, that maybe his daughter was running the shower, that maybe his wife was pushing clothes around in their closet, he thought that one or all of these things were calling him out of his sleep and he turned to his side and smiled, his eyes still shut. He would wake up and go see his loved ones and kiss them before they started their days, and later they would be the last things he saw before he returned to bed. Then he opened his eyes and saw the Himalayas sprawling out in front of him and he remembered that he was alone.
With a soft grunt he pulled himself to a standing position on the rocky ledge he had occupied for the last few weeks and began to stretch the stiffness out of his body, a motion so deeply ingrained in his psyche that he performed it despite not being in possession of a body.
He finished stretching and looked around at the mountain top covered all over with the sleeping forms of other testers. Once his ears adjusted to the wind he found it to be oddly quiet and he decided to stroll a bit, the occasional dislodged stone or crush of gravel as he slipped sounding far too loud in the rocky snowscape.
He arrived at a lower spine of rock that afforded a view of Everest’s southern face. On previous visits to mountaintops he had found a sense of peace when looking out at the scattered testers sleeping off years, if not centuries, of weariness from a push. Now, in the weird silence that he was convinced was somehow following him, things looked decidedly off and he found himself wishing for the company of other non-sleeping testers. Rubbing the back of one hand over a still weary eye he fumbled with the other in his pocket and dug out his cell phone. He flipped it open and his thumbs went to work, looking up numbers, typing out text messages. Then he flipped his phone shut and waited.
The wind picked up. It sounded like the mountaintop was screaming. Continue reading ‘Part 7: Politica del Carciofo’
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, by James Kakalios. The book is quite fun, although the physics sometimes goes over my head. I should point out that this isn’t because of any flaw with James Kakalios’s writing, it’s just that the physics sometimes go over my head. In fact, Kakalios is quite gifted at explaining things with easy to follow examples.