Mountain of Silence

I sat in front of a gigantic mountain and stared at it, and I let the mountain stare back at me.

The mountain didn't waste any time. It questioned me with its silence, calmly distorting and tranquilizing my mind with the harmonies of the wind as it passed through my eardrums, aggressively circling the bones of my head. My eyes witnessed the whitest veils of wind casually drifting across its face.

It didn't take long before I was taken over—possessed, calmed, overwhelmed.

I could no longer tell where I ended and the mountain began.

I am the mountain.

"Are you here yet?" it asked.

I have walked 8 hours that day and 27 years yesterday. I didn't know if I was.

A day earlier, I had been quietly staring and questioning while I rest the middle of concrete and humans; , all frantically trying to reach somewhere. It felt the same—endless. Constantly putting one foot after another, trying to get somewhere without knowing why. I held all these alpinists; the explorers in my vast empty stomach - as they tethered everywhere; lost in oblivion; blackened in white. How lonely must it feel to be in middle of the snow and the horizon you notice is also drawn by the snow. How scary must it feel to be in hear and feel voices while you are dragging your feet deepened inside 6feet of snow; but not to see anyone around.

The buildings looked so enormous that it was easy to get lost in the mazes they created and I am gigantic and infinite you will never be found . The sounds of people were so loud that you would drown in them while I am so silent you would only hear yourself.

It didn't make sense.

A human is said to get habituated to almost anything in twenty-one days, but why hadn't I? After a decade of brushing against the idealized expression of the world, why hadn't I learned how to paint with its colours? Or had I simply developed the habit of constantly wandering and losing myself everywhere I went?

I packed my bags one evening and took a flight the next morning.

Suddenly, I was in the exact opposite place from where I had been the day before.

From 156 metres above sea level to 5,410 metres.

From 39-degree summer to 2-degree cold.

From blocks of concrete to layers of ice and snow.

From cars, luxury, and dreams to horses, necessity, and survival.

Everything changed.

Except for the fact that I kept moving.

Or perhaps, except for the fact that I had arrived exactly where I was before.

This time, though, the voices were subtle—almost non-existent.

But the silence was loud.

It questioned.

I couldn't help but imagine an endless land of nothing but white snow, walking infinitely in every direction, trying to get somewhere but never arriving.

The mountain asked if I was there yet.

I was not.

The only difference between today and yesterday was that today, I knew I wasn't.