She slung her bag over her shoulder and took off down the the mountainside. When she looked back at her father she blushed. As his face was gleaming with pride.

As each stride took her farther and farther away I cried. Strangely some of the happiest and saddest tears every to run down my face. Of coarse these would soon dry. And I’d call everyday for a while. Just to briefly say hi.

Before quickly let her go explaining. I didn’t want to pry. A bold faced lie. That never fooled the young lady so sometimes she’d oblige me before I’d even tried.

Where two mountains meet she’d find a valley. That a river ran down to the coast. Somewhere out in Cali. There she’d board a sailboat. For a plane was to safe a way for her to get to Bali.

The only tips I had for her was to be wary but friendly. And don’t be tricked into buying any fake Australian Molly. The last time we talked I said I love you to her. And call me.

I didn’t call my mother for a month when I went. Said she was a wreck inside. I know now how much my actions were appalling. When she took two weeks to call me. Before I picked up the phone. I had to stop balling.

Every thing was fine. She’d been having a great time. I held it together long enough to seem excited for her. And thanked her for dropping a dime. A saying to antiquated for her to get? Hoping she‘d ask me to explain it to her. Keeping her lovely voice coming across the line.

Thank goodness she lets my nerves find a little reprieve. Letting me track her iPhone in case she ever gets into a bind. And of course she’s not traveling alone. She’s brought plenty of her friends along. Who like me would look under every stone. If she was gone too long.

So until I see her coming round the mountain. Climbing back up to her family home. I have be confident the head on her shoulders will keep her safe everywhere she wishes to roam.

The Mountain

She slung her bag over her shoulder

and took off down the mountain side with a boulder

The sun was shining bright

As she continued on with little to no fight

She moved fast on the ground

As the birds sang all around

She left her sadness at the top of the peak

And now she feels like she is able to speak

The bottom of the mountain was in sight

She wanted to reach it before the fall of night

The sunset on her back

Made her think she got her life back on track

In the sleepy rural village of Talparo, Kazia felt a burning sensation in her throat; her lungs felt like someone had poured gasoline on them and set them alight; she felt a fire raging within her; she felt a raging force. Whenever she walked through the community, the villager always whispered. Her lineage was unknown as she was adopted; she never quite fitted it; she always felt powerful; she never quite fitted in with her countrymen. That night Kazia burst into a ball of fire, transforming into a demonic flying wrench; she had become a fearsome Soucouyant. Under the moon's embrace, her human form vanished in the moon's embrace, replaced by a vampiric presence with glowing red eyes and a hunger for life force. Despite being good natured, she knew she had to keep this secret from her community.

The little village began experiencing mysterious nighttime terrorization by an unidentified power. The evil ghost terrorized the little town as it prowled the hillsides, spreading devastation. As she set out on her mission to get rid of the mysterious being, Kazia embraced her Soucouyant form. She slung her bag over her shoulder and took off down the mountainside. Unsettling whispers resounded all around her as she walked further into the forest. The malicious spirit was hidden by the dancing shadows of the village's ancient trees. With her magical powers guiding her across the perilous terrain, Kazia's senses sharpened. She moved gracefully and with quickness down the curving paths, her instincts now refined.

She arrived at a secluded area that was illuminated by the moon. A chill rushed down her spine as she sensed the spirit's presence. Kazia engaged the demonic force by unleashing her scorching flames. A violent struggle erupted. Kazia's soucouyant form maneuvered through the air, dodging the spirit's ethereal strikes, as a fierce struggle erupted. With her own rituals and spells, Kazia diminished the spirit's evil power, dismantling her foe's black magic. She bound the spirit and sent it back to the devil's lair using old incantations, bringing peace back to her small village. Kazia returned to her human form after the battle had ended. Though exhausted, she was satisfied with her triumph.

By the time she returned to the village, she was being hailed as a hero. Someone had seen the battle and her victory; they ran back to the village, spreading not just her selfless deed but hidden power. The people celebrated her bravery and unwavering dedication to their safety.

There was something about water bottles.

Her first one was small, could only hold 8 ounces of liquid, and had a sippy-cup lid. Vibrant green with spots of darker green, the cup was always around. At home, she would hold it while watching TV. At daycare, she would have it within arm’s reach as she played with blocks and counted coins. At each meal, her parents or teacher would refill the bottle, and she would trot away, content. The bottle was a constant presence; she needed to always be near it. When her mother took the bottle away to wash it, the little girl would sit by the sink and watch with attentive eyes. Through the night, the bottle would be by her bedside, resting on a table while the girl rested her body and mind.

Eventually, she replaced the bottle. The little girl grew up into a mature young adult. Her tiny bottle grew into a 64-ounce insulated flask carrying her whole day’s worth of water. She’d fill the bottle with coffee for the day if she needed a boost. The bright colors and bold patterns disappeared, replaced by a strikingly dull white sheen. The sippy-cup lid was replaced by a heavy-duty clamp, complete with a carabiner hook. This new bottle was heavy, akin to the girl’s mind after a day of work. She no longer had the luxury of watching her mother wash the bottle every week. Nowadays, it was her own task.

But she never completely forgot the green bottle from her youth. The woman, now grown, had come to the conclusion that her feelings did not have to be suppressed. Her plain white water bottle was replaced with a bright blue plastic bottle. Light and reusable, this new bottle almost perfectly reflected her outlook on life. She spent her weekends outdoors, camping and hiking in the woods with her water bottle. She slung her bag over her shoulder and took off down the mountainside, clinging to her bottle in one hand. She valued her time and made sure to spend it with people she enjoyed, doing activities she enjoyed in places she enjoyed. Her light water bottle swung from her fingertips as she laughed and walked. Maybe this was the future she’d wanted when she was little.

Sam’s relationship with her father was complicated. There was an intensity so deep and corroded that each small moment became monumental. Some times that was good, and others it was hell.

On any given day, the stories told about Sam’s relationship with Gerry could be different. Their love was apathetic, instrumental, menial, delusional, rotten, fluorescent, angelic, demonic. It was whatever it was. It just was.

By the time Gerry passed, he was a lonely soul. Him and Sam’s mother, Tricia, had parted ways years before, and ties were cut with Sam. He died alone in a small home along a river listening to Springsteen’s serenades for the disenfranchised.

When Sam received the call about funeral arrangements, she hadn’t the slightest clue what to say. Her answers were unintelligible, and she was shaking and nodding her head to a cell phone, as though movements as a form of language could be understood through sound waves. Shock, happiness, disaster were all formulating in her head like a twister. She hung up and cried deeper than she had since she was a child.

The next time the funeral home called, Sam said to cremate him. Why she said that, she didn’t know, but it seemed right. In her mind, they were walking up Sugarloaf Mountain on those quiet Sundays when the world seemed molded for them. Two people who always envisioned an idealized world that never materialised. A dream told through a bedtime whisper. But on those mornings when the world slept off a nasty Saturday hangover, they took to the mountain. They smiled at each other. Talked about things that never in a million years would be uttered to anyone else on God’s green earth. Because on those days there were no secrets. Just two half-souls becoming whole.

It took them close to an hour to reach the summit, and there they would overlook their town. A town that told their story like a Greek Pathos. What they saw filled them both with regret, and the possibility of restitching all the torn seams that seemed so viable a few hundred feet above the ground. Then Monday would arrive. And with it, the true realities of life would rear its ugly face, and the resentment of what life could have been if not for the other, would again erase the peaceful Sunday’s magic spell.

But when he died, Sam just thought about the Sundays. The past had a way of enlarging the good and deflating the bad. Sam supposed that’s what nostalgia was. A past-fantasy that never really existed, but maybe, in some ways, it did.

Her father was sitting on the tallest rock with a spray painted heart and the initials of two young lovers. Sam was standing in front of him. Those moments where he wore a face of deep thought. Deep intellect. A side of himself that he never revealed in front of his family, or his coworkers, in fear of ridicule. Ridicule that he was trying to be someone he was not. He was a labourer in an industrial town. That was all. That was it. But in front of Sam, on those trips, he was whoever he wanted to be. And on the mountain he was a Sunday philosopher.

“You know, Sam. The mountains, the wilderness, the breeze coming off the river. That’s how people are supposed to live. The freedom to be amongst nature. You’re not a slave to anyone except the elements. And even those you can overcome. The world wasn’t supposed to be smokestacks, polluting towns. Chemicals giving people cancer. People telling people who they are without a clue. Ya know? It was supposed to be freedom. The freedom of the wind in the air. The path paved just for you. Not for everyone else”

Sam would nod and agree. Agree with the idea of a world without borders. A world without judgment and suppression. A world where people were allowed to be free. A world on top of a mountain on Sunday. It was perfect. But perfection was such a small flame that in Sam’s experience, always burned out before it could grow large enough to light the sky.

She would sit on that mountaintop, praying to a God she never believed in, to please freeze time. “Please, God, just let me savour this moment. Let me live inside of it. Let me die here, in the company of the only one who ever truly understood me.”

“Sam, can I ask you a favour?” The voice of her father echoed inside her head. “When I die. I want to be free. Free amongst nature. Not in a coffin. Please. Never a coffin. Can you do that for your imperfect old man?”

Then, she realized why she had said to cremate her father. There was no way to tell if that memory was real, or just her imagination creating answers to questions that she could never answer otherwise. But she knew she had to go back home. She had to go back to the top of the mountain.

And that’s what Sam did. On a hot mid-July Sunday, a bottle of water, a backpack with the ashes of her father in a spiraling flower urn, and heavy thoughts of days gone by, she climbed the mountain for the first time in fifteen years.

The maple trees rising above her head like old friends. The snakes slithering through the fallen leaves, and the skittering squirrels and chipmunks, provided a comfort she had forgotten about. A comfort that the city, an office, a cubicle never provided. A life she had run away from out of fear. Fear of something she didn’t understand. Fear out of becoming her father, when she already knew that location wouldn’t change that fate.

As she reached the summit, the familiarity of it all nearly brought on a fit of panic. Sam looked around and saw nothing had changed. Nothing, except for her father being in her backpack instead of on that rock. That rock with the initials still carved into it. LJ loves PT. Sam wondered if they were still together now. Still in love. She actually felt like she would die if they weren’t. She needed them to be, so she told herself they were.

Sam placed the backpack on the steel grate on the edge of the mountain, looking over a town that hadn’t changed much except for the diminishing clouds from the smokestacks. “I’m sorry, dad,” she said to the urn, feeling silly, and saddened by the fact that she was speaking to a clay pot. Feeling saddened that inside of it was filled with sand. Sand like the beach of New Haven, except it was her father. A man who was larger than life. The biggest man she’d ever known, in stature and presence. Now he was grains of sand. “I’m sorry, dad.”

Then Sam raised the urn up above her shoulders and looked down at the town. The town filled with ghosts and demons of the past. But the same town filled with the biggest love she’d ever known. A feeling of wanting to stay and never see this place again played an evenly matched game of chess inside her heart.

“Dad. I know now. That I was you. And you were me. And that was a problem. We hated so deeply, but loved so deeply. The problem was that we could never find that middle ground. That place where most people live,” Sam said. “Our gift, our curse, was that we loved too much. We hated too much. We needed life to provide what we knew it never would. At least not in the long term. In short, sporadic spurts, it would. And in those, I’ll live, dad. In those, you will too. I love you. I hate you. I am you. I hope that you find peace amongst the trees. Amongst the sky. Amongst the freedom that nature brings. I love you.”

After the ashes fell over Sugarloaf like the sands of time, she slung her bag over her shoulder and took off down the mountainside.

With the crisp morning air kissing her cheeks,

She slung her bag over her shoulder, light and sleek.

A heart filled with wanderlust, an adventurous soul,

She embarked on a journey, ready to make it whole.

Down the mountainside, she gracefully descended,

Where nature's symphony, untamed and splendid.

Her steps found rhythm upon the rocky terrain,

A dance with the earth, an ode to the untamed.

Her bag held dreams, hopes, and secrets untold,

Whispers of tales that the mountains behold.

With each stride, she embraced the unknown,

A spirit unyielding, her spirit had grown.

The mountains whispered tales of ancient lore,

Whispered secrets, never heard before.

The wind serenaded her as it gently kissed her face,

Caressing her soul, in this vast, untamed space.

Through emerald valleys and cascading streams,

She followed the echoes of her childhood dreams.

In the company of pines, majestic and tall,

She found solace, for she had heeded nature's call.

The mountains cradled her with arms wide open,

Their grandeur inspiring, their beauty unbroken.

She breathed in the essence of untamed freedom,

As she descended, surrendering to her heart's wisdom.

With every step, her burdens began to fade,

And a sense of liberation began to cascade.

Down the mountainside, she journeyed with grace,

Discovering her strength in this vast open space.

The world unfolded before her in vibrant hues,

A tapestry of wonder, an enchanting muse.

Her spirit soared as she embraced the unknown,

Carving her path, a story uniquely her own.

"She slung her bag over her shoulder and took off down the mountainside,"

A vision of courage, a spirit untied.

In the embrace of nature, she found her release,

A symphony of life, a newfound inner peace.

It was nighttime, or it should have been. Out her tiny circular window she could see the Soul Moon, bathing the entire landscape in vibrant white light. Her socked feet hit the wooden floorboards beneath her bed, her fingertips itching.

Within moments she had shoved her feet into her shoes, tucked her notebook under her arm, and clutched a handful of pencils in her left fist. She moved silently through the house, slipped her backpack off its peg by the door, and teetered on the threshold between inside and outside.

She pushed the door open, and it gave a low creak. Then, she slung her bag over her shoulder and took off down the mountainside.

The tall grasses looked silver in the Soul Moon's light, the sky like a gaping black hole punctuated with a blinding orb. The air was warm but her hair still stood on end, conscious of the wind and every whisper of movement around her. Everywhere she looked she expected to see them, the ghosts. The souls. Today was the one day a year that the planes overlapped, allowing the souls re-entry into the corporeal world. Her spine vibrated at the thought, fear or excitement making her mouth turn dry.

She continued down the mountain, eyes skittering across pebbles that shone like jewels. Every flower shone like the moon itself, stretching their necks towards the sky to absorb the light.

The mist hit her first. She hadn't realized how far down she'd traveled until she felt the softness of the grass under her feet, heard the lapping of water. There were three Crystal Ponds in the village, appearing and disappearing from the landscape over the decades. She recalled the stories the elders told her--that the souls would congregate here. Hold ceremonies for what they once were and who they've become. That they'd dip their spectral toes into the blazing crystal waters and turn into flesh once more, until the last ray of Soul Moon slipped behind the horizon. And in some of the stories, they remained mortal.

A myth, she whispers to herself. A myth, a myth, a myth.

In the mist, she wouldn't be able to distinguish between ghost and flesh anyway. Everything was in shades of grey, and she couldn't even see the mountains anymore. She couldn't see the water, couldn't even see the sky. Her breath trembled, making white clouds in the air. Her shoes sunk into wet, marshy land, and she struggled to walk forward, squinting into the mist.

A shrieking wind slipped by her ear, deathly cold, and she fell to her knees, her legs squelching in the mud. Her hair blew across her face, the sound of rushing water growing louder and closer, and suddenly everything lit up: figures swarmed in her vision, close and far, with and without features. They looked like shadows against the never-ending light of the Soul Moon.

And all at once, the world went silent. The wind stopped and her hair fell limply against her face and neck, sticking to the moisture at her temples. Her ears rang in the silence. The mist was cleared.

In front of her was the Crystal Pond. The water was calm and shimmering, sparkling in the bright spot light of the Soul Moon. Tendrils of fog still drifted off the surface of the water, but they dissipated as quickly as a breath. And the souls. The souls were real.

It looked as if the entire village were here, their bodies shining as brightly as stars. They were so bright it hurt, but she couldn't look away. Her hands numbly pulled her notebook and a pencil out of her backpack, her eyes barely blinking. Not a soul looked at her, and she wondered if they could see.

They stood at the edge of the water, none of them touching the pond. In fact, the water drew away from them if they strode too near. They walked like any humans walked, feet planted on the ground firmly, squashing the grass underneath their feet. If they didn't glow eerily white, she'd think they were simply regular people bathed in light.

Trembling, she began to draw, not bothering to even look down at her notebook as she did. She drew the souls that looked more like comets than people. She drew the souls that had beard and glasses and robes. She drew the souls the size of newborns and children smaller than herself. She drew the souls that towered over the pond like trees, the souls that intertwined with others so completely they were one, the souls that wore expressions of joy and sorrow and pain and hope.

She drew until her hand ached, watching them walk to each other and touch fingers. They circled the pond, only a few daring to try and touch it. The water would rear away from them, pull back and reveal the dry silt underneath. The souls did not speak or sing or chant or pray; they didn't need to.

And when the very last glimmer of the Soul Moon sunk behind the mountains in the distance, she watched the souls fade away. Swirling together in a mass of light and stardust, pulled past the horizon and back home. She knelt at the edge of the water, where it pooled around her legs but didn't touch her notebook. She looked down, let the wind rifle through the pages of drawings, showing her that she'd filled the entire book. Every page another person, another expression, another glimpse into something beyond her comprehension. And then her gazed wandered down to her body, which shone with the soft misty light of the Soul Moon, despite it being gone.

She watched curiously as the light emanating from her own arms and legs spilled into the water. She stood, and set her backpack on the edge of the Crystal Pond, noticing the translucence of her own skin, feeling the water lapping at her ankles. When she looked to the sky, there it was, as she expected it to be: the Soul Moon perfectly above her. Too bright to look at. She felt the water rise, felt the Soul Moon grow closer and closer, felt the warmth of its light on what was left of her skin. And then it enveloped her, as it does all things in the end.

A child found her notebook at the edge of the Crystal Pond the next morning, completely dry and owner-less. In it, there was a drawing of everyone who had ever walked the village and gone. And at the end, the very, very last page, was a drawing of the girl herself, kneeling at the edge of the Crystal Pond with her head raised to the Soul Moon.