The Mountaintop
It was summer—warm air nipped at my sunbaked skin, just the wrong side of unpleasant. My toes trailed through the biting water of the lake, ripples chasing my foot back and forth. The sky had just reached dusky twilight, promising reprieve from the heat of the day.
"Pass it here." Casey brushed my leg with her toes as she lay stretched out on the dock beside me. I pulled deeply on the joint before handing it over to her, breathing out just before the burn turned into a cough.
"Do you ever think about the stars?" she said, looking up as she waved away a wisp of smoke. I followed her eyes and saw the first glimmer of constellations overhead.
"You know I'm not into that hippy shit, Case." She was always on about crystals and tarot cards and aligning her energy or something. The new New Age, she called it.
"No, not that. Though we should talk about Mercury transitioning into your Eighth House... but no. Just that there are so many of them, and they are so far away. It's kind of... lonely."
I leaned my head back against the corner post and let my focus soften. The ceaseless sound of tires on asphalt relaxed into a static thrum. From there, crickets and toads picked up the melody. I put my hand on Case's foot in a bid for connection. We submersed ourselves in the moment, letting our souls breathe beyond the bounds of our skin.
At some point, Casey peeled herself off the dock. "I've got work in the morning, so I'm gonna crash. Don't stay out here too late. The mosquitoes will eat you alive." She nudged me gently as she meandered up the stairs. I heard the screen door slap shut, and the deck light flicked off.
I closed my eyes and inhaled another lungful of smoke, feeling the pull of gravity spread from my shoulders down my arms. Relaxation. I rolled my head, feeling the muscles in my shoulders pull and stretch, holding on to the tension I piled there.
Casey was back. I felt her sit down cattycorner to me. I smiled lightly, knowing she didn't like to be in the house alone. I peeled open my right eye to give her a look, and it took me a full five seconds to realize Casey was not the person sitting a foot away from me. I nearly fell into the water as I tried to move away and look at the woman simultaneously. The result was an unchoreographed splaying of limbs and curse words.
"What the... who the... fuck. Who the hell are you? You scared the shit out of me." I was sort of crouched, holding on to the post, ready to spring if I needed to get away. The girl looked about my age with a mirthful smirk on her face. She was cross-legged, with a beautiful scarlet skirt draped over her knees. Curly brown hair escaped behind her ear from the otherwise neatly appointed braid. She lazily reached over and took a large puff from the joint, exhaling directly into my face.
I coughed, more out of surprise than anything. As I recomposed myself, the girl tilted her head and spoke.
The bear and the bull have come to be your gods. They feast on blood and turn it to gold. Cries echo across the sea, yet we cannot turn back. We must reach the mountaintop.
"Ohhhhhh... kay." My eyes flitted over her for clues, a weapon, anything that would explain what on earth was happening. "Who are you? How did you get down here?" There wasn't an easy way to get to the dock except through the house, but the porch light was still off, and the door still closed.
The vapor carries me across winds and ages. It brings me to those who can read the strands of destiny, to be the mouth of the future. She motioned toward the joint, smoldering in the ashtray by her feet, and then nodded in my direction.
"Right, ok. I get it. I'm really high." The words didn't feel quite right; they fell empty to the ground. After staring silently at her for an unpolite amount of time, I reached over and pushed a finger into her knee. It felt solid enough.
She looked annoyed and let out a long sigh. She straightened her shoulders and met my gaze, appealing for seriousness.
We must reach the mountaintop.
There was urgency in her voice. She reached towards the joint, apparently hoping for another inhale but let her hand linger in the air when she realized it was no longer burning.
"I got you," I said. I put the joint between my lips and flicked the lighter. Her eyes were the size of small moons as she watched me take a hit before passing it to her.
What magic. Fire appears from your hands. Indeed, you are humanity's chosen.
I nearly passed out laughing so hard. "Humanity's chosen?" Laughter devolved into a coughing fit. "No (cough) fucking (cough cough) thank you." The girl's face flashed a mixture of confusion and worry until I finally caught my breath. "Look, I don't know who you are or how you got down here, but I prefer if you didn't spew bullshit like that." The confusion on her face darkened.
Do you not see the threads? Her hands traced through the air, outlining the translucent filaments that always appeared in my vision when I smoked.
"I do, but that's just the weed. It does something to the ocular cortex, from what I've been told." But I was entranced watching as she manipulated the air before her, taking the strands and weaving them into shapes.
You see. She didn't make eye contact, too focused on what she was doing, but somehow sensed that she had my full attention. We must reach the mountaintop.
"What mountain are you even... You know what? Let's start over. Got a name?"
With that, she paused and met my gaze. They call me Pythia.
"Lovely to meet you, Pythia. I'm Gina. Now, what is going on?" This seemed like a perfectly reasonable question, but it seemed to annoy her. Her hands dropped into her lap, and she looked at me as if I was an idiot.
She paused to gather her words. When she started speaking, she spoke slowly, enunciating her words like we were speaking different languages.
The vapor. Pythia's hands made a swirling motion in the air. It connects those who can see. She pointed to her eyes and then the filaments that drifted in the air. Then she gestured between us, implying that we were somehow the same. Show us the threads of destiny. We speak their truths. We must reach the mountaintop.
After she finished speaking, neither of us moved, though I did look around, trying once again to find a hint or a clue as to what the hell was going on. She kept her gaze firmly fixed on my face.
"What, are you an oracle or some shit? And you're trying to tell me that I am too?" Her eyes lit up in acknowledgment, but before she could say anything more, I continued. "Like I said, no fucking thank you. I have too much on my plate as it is. I have absolutely zero... zippo... nada... interest in knowing the future. And I certainly have no interest in climbing a goddamn mountain."
Choice is an illusion. The fates have said it is so, and so it is. She was talking to me like I was a child. Like she was saying something utterly uncontestable: the sky was blue, the ocean big.
"The fates can suck it for all I care. No one gets to tell me what to do or who to be. There is no grand design, no destiny. You can't even convince me that there's free will. That implies there's something to be free from. There is just existing and not existing. You and I? We're in the 'existing' period at the moment."
Pythia's confusion was delicious. Her eyebrows scrunched over unfocused eyes. Her hands were tugging at the massless strands still lingering in the air around us. She opened her mouth a few times, trying out different responses, but she couldn't seem to find the one she was looking for.
"I suppose you're used to people oh-ing and awe-ing over you, manifesting yourself like a dream and exhorting the unsuspecting with your pretty words." I nudged her with my foot, trying to show that I was trying for honesty, not hurtfulness. "You'd have way better luck with my roommate, Casey. She's always banging on about star charts and fortunes. I don't really buy into all of that."
Pythia continued to sit there, utterly bewildered. Her eyes were roving around the dock. I could see her calculating, trying to make the pieces fit back together. After a moment, she looked back up at me. With much less conviction, she repeated: We must reach the mountaintop.
It was almost a question this time, which made me chuckle. "No mountains around here," but then something occurred to me. "Unless you're talking metaphorically. In which case, fuck that. I'm not climbing any mountains, real or rhetorical."
She reached for the joint again, a stalling tactic perhaps. Or maybe she was looking for inspiration to get this conversation back on track. We passed it back and forth between us a few times, Pythia sorting her thoughts and me feeling unusually smug.
Without destiny, we are nothing, she finally managed to say.
"Says who? Destiny is just a tool that powerful men use to control the proletariat. It gives them credit for their own success while making the failures of others 'preordained.' It's all a construct to maintain justifiable inequity." I shifted my gaze back out across the lake again. "A construct I choose to ignore. Besides, I'd much rather focus on this," I nodded to the water, "than on some unattainable dream of the future."
My train of thought was interrupted by the screen door whining open. "I thought I heard talking out here," Casey said as she plopped back on the dock between Pythia and me. "Didn't realize you had a friend over, G. I would have stayed up if I'd known."
"This is Pythia," I motioned at the girl. "I was just about to start in on the evils of capitalism and how the social contract is misused to keep power in the hands of old white dudes."
Casey's eyes rolled nearly out of her head. "Not the old white dudes again. We get it, they're evil."
"Not evil," I corrected. "In fact, they are acting completely rationally. Rather, they just suck."
"Amen to that," Case said, reaching for the joint. "Ah shit, this is done. Want me to roll another one?" I nodded my assent.
Pythia watched as we bantered back and forth, the confusion etching deep ridges in her forehead. Finally, she raised her hand and looked directly at Casey. Her former seriousness had returned.
The bear and the bull have come to be your gods. They feast on blood and turn it to gold. Cries echo across the sea, yet we cannot turn back. We must reach the mountaintop.
Her delivery was much less confident. It was clear that some of the weight had gone from the words. Casey reached over and booped the girl on the nose.
"Aren't you a charming one? Where'd you find her, G?"
Pythia looked astonished, rubbing her nose with the flat of her palm. I laughed.
"She just sort of showed up... I think she might be a time-traveling celestial. Come to us from Delphi to deliver a prophetic warning."
"You two have smoked a little too much," Casey said. "Can we agree, no more prophecies tonight? The stars are too bright for that."
We sat there in silence, watching the universe inch by overhead.
Writing Battle Autumn 2023 Short Story
Prompts: Stoner in Time | Destiny | Ignoring
Result: Did Not Place (5 Points)
