The heat had been unbearable, making the climb the hardest thing Armand had ever done. Not that it was a difficult rock. It would actually look fairly uninteresting in the eyes of climbers, which was why he had chosen it. That, and it’s apparent geological stability. “It will be here for thousands of years” he thought, and smiled. His feet hurt, and his hands were badly abraded. Twice he had lost his footing and almost fell. And for what? He wasn’t so sure now. It was the wildest idea he ever came up with. Lila had burst out laughing when he told her, and later the tears and rage had come.
“I’m losing you Armand” she had said, “You’re going nuts, snap out of it!”
“People just climb for fun, why can’t I do it with a purpose?” He had asked.
“You know nothing about climbing. And now you want to find some fucking aliens on a rock!”
“No, no aliens, I’ve told you, it’s..”
“Stop it! I’m tired of your bullshit. It’s ridiculous. Step back in reality.”
After a couple seconds of hesitation he had then started saying “I’m just gonna..” she had turned on her heels and stormed out of the house, slamming the door on the way out. The next day, when he had come back from work, all her things were gone.
He bought a Honda motorcycle on his credit card. A trail bike that would be at ease in the Arizona desert. Arizona was nothing like North Carolina where he had taken a few climbing lessons though. It took him a week to find the right rock. A week of riding in the sun and the dust. The location had to be isolated enough that it would remain unvisited for a very long time.
Now, he dared not look down. He had to stop many times to catch his breath. The bike became a small red speck on the ground below. The summit was within a stone’s throw. Armand felt a crack with his right hand, grabbed a piton from his belt and stuck it in the interstice. He made sure he kept three points of contact as he hammered it in the rock. Grab, pull, one move at a time. Progress was slow but inexorable. If only it wasn’t so damn hot, he thought. Finally, his hand reached the last edge, he pulled one last time, swung his legs over and rolled on his back, panting.
Armand had not drunk any water on the rock wall from fear of making a mistake and losing his grip. He reached for one of his water bottles. “I should have bought one of these hydration backpacks with a drinking tube” he said to himself. One bottle was cracked from his rolling away from the edge, onto his small backpack. He had three more. Sitting up, he forgot about drinking for a few minutes. The view was unbelievable. The countryside looked much greener than from the ground. The reddish soil reminded him of Australia where he had spent a couple months hitch-hiking; eons ago it seemed. He thought about time again.. Time was what got him here, why he climbed this rock, hoping that some day, someone would figure it all out. He opened the plastic container and started drinking. Dozens of trillions of cells in his body seemed to get the message and absorb the life giving moisture. It felt like water was pouring into his whole body though thousands of pinholes. Armand finished the bottle and lay on his back.
When he woke up, his face was burning. He checked his watch. One hour. Half of the day was gone. “Time to go to work” he thought, and pulled the chisel and hammer from his backpack. The summit was fairly flat but for an anvil shaped formation on the North side. That is where Armand decided to go to work. There was an eye-level slab large enough to his left, perfect for the task. He took a deep breath, placed the chisel on the rock face and hit it hard with his hammer, closing his eyes at the last moment to protect them. Ten minutes later he had carved the first letter “T.”
It took him five hours. His hands were bleeding. Almost all of his water was gone. He had an emergency canteen, but it was on the bike. The sun was setting on the horizon, blending the color of the ground with the sky. The view was breathtaking, but he felt exhausted. “I’m a fool” he thought, “Lila was right.” He had stopped working twice because his chest hurt, and that scarred him very much. Once because a chip of rock embedded itself in his cheek. He had brought a large ham sandwich and a peanut butter and jelly one for breakfast, but working so hard had make him hungry, so he ate them both, then drank the last of his water. He removed a sweater and small jacket out of his bag before putting the tools back in. “I’ll use this one as a pillow” he thought, rolling the jacket and placing it next to him on the rock. He put the sweater on, lay back as comfortably as possible on the hard surface. Armand had never seen that many stars before. Sleep came fast as he pondered on those inevitable questions one asks while stargazing..
The motorcycle was found two weeks later by an ultralight pilot who spotted it from his aircraft, deduced that it must belong to a climber and flew above the rock to check for it’s owner. There was a couple items on the top, hard to discern, but no human. The pilot, afraid that the climber may have fallen into the bushes at the base of the rock, called for help. There was no body to be found, dead or alive. The search team had surveyed the whole area, using dogs and infrared cameras from a helicopter. The mystery deepened significantly when two days later the carved inscription was found on the summit: “TAKE ME THROUGH TIME – SEP 13 2008”.
Leave a Reply