Wisdom of the World
A companion piece to EarthBound: ReBound
Mt. Pepsy is not the tallest of the mountains of the world... but it always seems to watch, and wait, and decide for itself which face to turn to the world.
Picky looked at the rock wall. It wasn't going to climb itself- indeed, it seemed resolutely immobile, and showed no signs of becoming an escalator or elevator any time in the next few minutes.
He chalked his hands- his palms were sweaty already... And started to climb the face. No ropes- no pitons- no one else. Just him, and the granite of Mt. Pepsy.
Hand over hand. Foot over foot. Find a hold, shift your weight a little at first to test, and then place the full weight. Calm, slow, speed isn't important now. He felt bad that Elliot and Pokey couldn't have come along- But Elliot, Picky thought, had his own concerns... And Pokey was nowhere to be found.
The three of them had been inseparable. But then the freshman year happened. Picky was only ten years old at the time, but he could feel the changes.
Picky slipped. Steady! Grab hold. Stay stable. Speed means nothing. His hair had shifted to cover his face- a few blonde strands. He looked up, and that seemed to clear them away from his face.
He didn't see Elliot or his brother that often in that year, except for rumors that the two of them had taken on seniors- and won. Not that Picky considered that an amazing feat now. He'd done it once before in his freshman year of high school, too- until Elliot told him on no uncertain terms that he'd help Picky whenever it was needed.
The sound of that promise echoed in Picky's mind for a moment. Should he have brought Elliot here? He shook his head. It wasn't Elliot's time to climb. It was Picky's and that was all.
Handhold. Your back palm is sweaty again. Calm. So it was Picky's turn to climb the mountain. Had others taken this path before him, seeking the same answers to similar questions? Picky didn't know. After he had asked the question, Picky discovered that he really didn't care, either.
So what did matter? What mattered was what became of him, right now. Because right now, he had a choice. Many choices, come down to that, and he could see them stretching before him, like the rock above and below, a wilderness of stone.
What were his choices? He could go home, and be grounded for the rest of the summer. He knew, with a sickening certainty, that it would happen, and that that may not be what was needed. He could go follow Elliot, but Elliot's path wasn't his own. Nor was his brother's path the same one he would walk. Picky was certain of that much, at least.
So whatever path he took, he had to move forward. Or upward, depending on how you looked at it. He found several more handholds, and progressed up the steep slope.
Where was forward, exactly? The question was put neatly into his mind, as if whispered by the rock face. Forward was somewhere he wasn't now, and hadn't been before. Was that really forward? Or just cowardice? No, there were things he had to take care of abroad, just like the others.
What did he need to take care of? A foothold slipped. Picky hung precariously for a moment before finding another one. First, he had to take care of himself. He could not live with his family anymore. It just wouldn't work. It might mean being away from his only support, Elliot. Picky considered for a moment, and found the answer with the next handhold. "So be it," he whispered.
Onett wasn't an option. What was? Where do you need to go? There was a brief vision of him dying, crushed under the weight of the falling mountainside. Picky cleared his head of it. He might go that way. Picky accepted it and moved on through visions of vicious deaths of varying pain levels. He had to rest, to stop hallucinating for a minute.
The visions began as soon as his hand put to a new hold. So that was why so few people ascended this face. This, the eastern face, held fear for all who climbed it. Picky, warned, kept climbing, slowing down just enough so that each vision before him could fade before finding the next handhold or foothold. Fear would not sway him now.
Picky supposed three days was a while to be alone, and kept going up the cliff face. Other visions instead of fear came to him. Of money- mountains of mountains of gold, jewels, anything he could ever want that money could buy was his. Picky kept going. Then came visions of fame, people shouting his name. For what reason, Picky didn't know. He didn't care. All he wanted was to climb the mountain and have a good think.
There came a vision to his mind, of a girl he knew back home. Flustered, asking for something... something important. Picky shook his head. If illusions were all Mt. Pepsy had to offer, he should have stayed home.
It was odd, Picky decided. Had he had the vision before now... This vision of what to him represented beauty, he might have turned aside. But as it was, all he wanted to do now was finish this climb, perhaps out of sheer spite. No. It was because he wanted something else. Something more than what each vision offered.
The next question came very quickly. Was power, per se, what Picky wanted? Perhaps. His path might require some power. His answer came in the slow climb. "So... be... it," he whispered again.
For the next few precious yards, no more visions came. Then came other visions- visions of abilities, things Picky had never seen before- powers of life and death, of peace and war, even the powers of starlight and Mother Earth herself.
Picky's green eyes blinked rapidly, clearing the visions from his mind. If such power- the very power of the stars- was what he needed, "So... be it."
Picky thought it another illusion, but his hands were glowing, his grip on the scant handholds firmer than before. Who cared if it was illusion, as long as it helped him scale the mountain, helped him find his path. The thought was there at the back of his mind- the power was his. These powers- his hands and grip were only the beginning.
Picky's hands burned with fire froze with cold, numbed with shock. Points of light appeared near his wrists, ready to fall and be shaken down. Whorls of mixed light held at his beck and call. He was forced to stay still as his hands injured themselves and healed themselves within milliseconds, again and again. They became covered in darkness, and light so bright it shone red even through Picky's closed eyelids. Lances of light shot at them, but he felt no pain, as shields protected him. Power upon power piled down into him, until all he could do was hold on and hope, pray for this to pass.
His eyes opened. Picky knew what he had to do. "Not yet!" he screamed, and abruptly, the powers stopped. Picky kept climbing, and his path became clearer.
The power seemed to go from him, but he knew it was locked up, inside his mind, ready for him.
So he didn't want power 'just because'. He didn't want money, or fame. He didn't want women, not even the one who he had thought would have gotten him to leave anything behind. He didn't want to follow his brother- The skeevy little bastard, Picky amended to himself- nor his family, nor even his semi-adoptive brother, Elliot. Before the vision could even dance in his mind, Picky knew he didn't want to lead either.
That wasn't the vision that came to him next. It was a vision of himself, standing in front of some situation- a perilous one. Of Elliot, trapped in a cave knee-deep in water, of him wading through it and facing some sort of shadow, striding resolutely forward- and failing, dying a thousand horrible deaths, because this was him, in its purest form, and Picky had to save him-
Picky's senses returned to him. Elliot could always take care of himself. Whatever he was 'Chosen' to do, he could do. Plain and simple. And besides, if Elliot had needed saving, or was the kind of person who wanted to be saved, he would have never faced off against seniors.
The next vision was him, standing atop a pile of corpses, of all his enemies, past present and future. Picky retched, and would have hurled- both from his stomach and off the mountain- if not for his new preternatural grip. As it was, his stomach rebelled against the deaths of so many.
The visions cleared. The face's top was in sight now. A few more grips and he was there. But now the mountain became more treacherous than ever. It assaulted him with visions of things he knew and didn't know, whispered doubts into his soul, warned of a coming fire and death should he stay here, people betraying him, Picky betraying others. Picky closed his eyes, and purely on his mental map, climbed the last five handholds.
From the top of Mt. Pepsy's treacherous east face, everything seemed clearer. Everything seemed brighter. And eveythig seemed... Quiet. Picky hadn't expected that. Mt. Pepsy was an inactive volcano, after all. But as long as it was quiet, Picky would sit, and think. But first, there was something he needed to say, or at least needed to be said.
"Mountain, I have come to learn the wisdom of my heart, and the wisdom of the world. You have told me what I don't want. But now, I need to know what I do want. So tell me." Picky kneeled towards the cone of Mt. Pepsy, his head bowed. "Please. Help me."
That said, Picky sat down, in a sort-of comfortable position, but not so comfortable he would fall asleep, and started the breathing exercises he had learned from both his tae kwon do instructor and from Elliot.
At the East Face of Mt. Pepsy, Showing his face to the sunrise, Picky meditated.
After a while- Time seemed to have dilated for him, and he didn't know what time nor what day it was, but that it was sunrise, and that Picky had learned his path. He stood up slowly, waking up sleeping limbs and working kinks out of joints. He stood up, stretching his arms to the sunrise. "SO BE IT!" he shouted to the world.
There was an odd smell, of rotting food. He looked in his backpack. His sandwich had spoiled. He still had some gorp in his pack, so he munched on that and some rye wafers while trying to seal off the smell of rotted meat as deep as possible in his backpack. Packing all the rest in, he headed down the mountain, which no longer resisted him.
END- Wisdom of the World