Mountain Path, North Wales by Bronwen Griffiths

Nonfiction

Photo by Daniel J. Schwarz on Unsplash

“The way up and the way down are one and the same.” Heraclitus

If the path is steep and stony on the way up the mountain and if, perhaps, it crosses several

streams or rivulets and, if there are fields of sharp stones to cross, and an old sheep byre, a

stand of ancient pines (wind-blown, leaning like old women) and a square of summer pasture

- if these things are passed on the way up they will, if you take the same path down, be passed as you leave. However, the path down is not, and can never be, the same as the way up. By now, tired and in need of a sandwich and a chunk of chocolate, your view is different because you are not looking up at the crag anymore or the scudding clouds which resemble the gathered sheep on the ridge. Now the mountain is behind you and you are seeing a llyn edged with reeds which you did not notice on the way up, and you spot the skull of sheep, bleached white by the weather, which you did not see earlier. The clouds are no longer rushing by but have flocked together like the sheep and there is less sunlight than before, although from time to time shafts of yellow illuminate the dry grass and turn it almost white against the darkness. This light spellbinds you in a way you were not spellbound on the way up, possibly because you were perspiring heavily in spite of the chill wind, and your heart was thudding loud in your chest from the effort of your upward movement, while on the way down you only have the twinge in your knee to worry about. On the way down you do not stop at the same spots as on the way up and, even if you did, these same spots cannot be the same spots for, as you know, the earth spins around the sun and therefore, because time has elapsed, these points cannot be the same points as they were. You must conclude that the path up is never the same as the path down, no matter how careful you are to tread in your same footsteps. It also cannot escape your notice that your boot prints on the way down are now upside down, or perhaps they are now the right way up. All you can be sure of is the mountain itself and even this is an illusion.

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Author's Note:

I love to garden. If I'm angry lopping at brambles, it helps calm me, but planting and watching shrubs, trees and flowers flourish is both wondrous and relaxing. I love taking photographs of flowers and rocks, and I also draw and paint. Walking too is a balm but I've been suffering from tendonitis and have been unable to walk far this past year. However I can still swim and I love to be in the water. Reading is my other escape - fiction and non-fiction.  At present I'm reading Robert Macfarlane's book, 'Is a River Alive?'  

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Bronwen Griffiths writes both long and short form fiction. Her flash pieces have been published in many fine journals, and she was delighted to win the Mslexia Flash Fiction Award last year. She intends to self-publish a novel later this year. She lives in East Sussex, UK.

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