The Mountain

The mountain was laughing at me. A mocking laugh, insulting, and derogatory. I spent more and more of my days staring at it from afar in my home, seething.

Somehow in spite of my anger and embarrassment it stayed there, every day. Looming, domineering, resolute, mocking. The mountain kept on laughing at me!

One night I was asleep, or at least trying to. I could hear its laughter still. Even in my dreams it strove to belittle me. I screamed into my pillow.

When I opened my window to glare at it, it was as if the miles between me and the mountain were minimised. It towered over me arrogantly, but I stared right back. I would have the last laugh.

A bully cannot be abided. That's what the mountain was as it laughed at me, a bully. I would confront it. I set out to climb the mountain and conquer it.

The laughter grew as I got closer. As I ascended its slopes the laughter became a cacophony echoing off the stony walls. I raved and raged in defiance and kept climbing.

Higher and higher I went, and colder it got. Wind and snow whipped at me. I felt the icy sting coming into the laughter, crueller now. The only thing keeping me going was my will.

I could feel my blood freezing. The laughter grew more defiant with me. It became angry and mad.

With my last energy I began to dig in the snow. I don't know why. I found something. My hands were numb, and I struggled to clear the ice and snow from the face. It was a man. He was dead.

His face was stretched and twisted into a horrifying mask. The laughter of the mountain was frozen on his face.