Compassion

In the city I grew up there was a mountain, with a flat top, visible from almost every part of the city. Often a cumulous cloud would hover above it, giving it a full head of curly white hair. Most of the city’s children were carried by their parents up it when they were babies. They had had picnics on some of the easier trails and as we grew older we learned to climb its narrow veins. It wasn’t always impassable but it was wild. We were always warned by our parents, that people went missing up there. As teenagers, it excited us to talk about this as we climbed and we’d celebrate our return with a reference: we made it, we’d say…