Approaching the Mount

 

Stave I

I am only a little girl. I didn't know what I was doing. I just got so mad. I'm probably stupid most days, but the man in white usually comes then and I can talk to him simply. But that day, I was so angry, beyond mad really. I felt white hot inside, and I stomped my foot and the world disappeared. Before you think me strange, listen. I didn't plan it and I've never experienced such before myself. I was just so rage filled. I stomped my foot on my bedroom rug and all my toys and bed, and shelves vanished. My room of white and lavender faded, and I stood in a desert of rock and fear.

The space was dark but hot as midday still. The sand and stone beneath my Mary Jane shoes were shivering. Tension in the air crackled as lightening flashed continuously overhead. I looked up and I was instantly terrified at the dark mountain before me. The mountain took up all my vision and I could see a rough circle of placed stones marking off the base of the mountain. Crags of rock stuck out at a few odd places, but I could see a means of climbing to the top where lightening almost seemed to strike repeatedly. The whole place looked threatening in a strange orange light as the sky went red. Thunder crashed at imprecise moments. I heard cows and goats panicking in the storm. Humans were crying and there was such fear in the air, my arm hairs stood on end. As I tried to get my bearings and find the other people, a massive cloud came straight down from the sky to land on the mountain before me. A thick, dense cloud covered the whole of the mountain and swirled rapidly with a ferocity no human could survive. I looked over my shoulder and saw the shadows of a crowd of people far behind me, all watching the mountain in terror with me.

Winds blew and I fell to my knees. The sand cut my skin and I cried out, but I don't think the sound could be heard over the storm. I suddenly knew I could possibly die here. The lightening was like blasts of fire knocking people over and the thunder made the ground tremble so no one could stand back up. I stayed on my knees before the mountain.

I was crying, or weeping I think they call it when tears fall continuously. I was too afraid to make a sound. There was no room for a cry in the storm. The wind picked up and it seemed to steal the breath from everybody behind me as well as the animals. It's confusing to say, but I heard a trumpet blast call from the storm. Louder than all the thunder crashes and wind gusts, but it made my whole body shake.

The cloud still covered the mountain, the lightning and thunder still broke over everything in sight. Smoke began to rise off every edge of the mountain before me. I couldn't be sure I was seeing right but eventually I could smell it. It was black smoke and smelled of burning meat, but also of something sweet like the mountain had vegetation or herbs growing higher up. The smoke added to the darkness filling every area of the desert around us. The darkness engulfed every human and animal in the shadows behind me. I tried to see through the smoke and thought the mountain was shaking. That didn't seem possible as it was huge and very solidly based, with few high points. Eventually though, it was clear that the mountain was violently trembling.

Again, I thought I heard a trumpet in the storm. The wind swirled sand around me, and I was so afraid. I pulled my hands off the ground to wrap them around myself. I was still weeping but I was just so scared. How did I get here? Then a voice spoke from the mountain, louder than the storm.

    “You cannot come up here. This Mountain is set apart as Holy.” I cried aloud and wished it would stop and never speak again. Then everything went black, and I heard and remembered nothing more.

Stave II

I drew a shuddering breath and found I was alive and awake. I could still feel all the sand on my body and even in my teeth. Every movement rasped something and sand shushed to the ground. I opened my eyes painfully.

Honestly, I'm just a little girl. I don't do things on purpose most times. Sometimes I am very naughty, but I don't know how I get into such places. I'm only three feet tall in my highest shoes and I do wonder if other girls have as much trouble as I do to stay present in their bedrooms with their toys. When I opened my eyes, I was somewhere completely different.

It was more of a long sloping hill to a high peak. Everything around me was brown turf and green grass. Scrubby brush went down one side of the mountain before me. I realized I must be halfway up this mountain already. White dots of sheep filled out the valleys and hillside below me. A path went winding down to my left, rocky and uneven, while it continued up to the right, climbing higher to what looked like a stone wall that almost glowed white in the sunlight.

Behind me stretched rows of olive trees. They were so knobby and strange, like posed dancers in a parade. Some were so wide they were like pillars or vases filled with leaves. Each one seemed to have upraised hands as if in exultation. The green fruits seem to dance on their branches as wind pushed up the mountain.

I stood and began to walk up the mountain side. I brushed sand out of as many places as I could, even emptying the pockets of my apron. What would mother say? I could feel sticky patches on my cheeks where my tears had dried, and I remembered where I'd just been. I had been at a mountain before. A dangerous mountain of smoke and burning fire, of darkness and storm. I remembered how afraid I had been and tried to brush out more of the sand that was in my hair. I looked around again as I neared the top of this vastly different mountain.

Before me was rising a tower facade of rough stone, like a prehistoric castle. Perhaps I thought that because it was so unadorned and simple. It was designed for great weight and presence, with such a smooth surface to the walls, they'd have been hard to climb. There was one entrance on my approach, and it was shut tight with a door that seemed to be four tree trunks melded together with time and cut to fit so not even light escaped the edges. It was massive and rather intimidating. I felt strange standing by this threshold, like it was so much older than time and stood for so much more. Perhaps if I could cross it, or even stand in the passageway, I'd know so much more than I do now. I think it's because it was such an old gate.

I walked around the side of the tower and there were no windows or openings. I got tired before long, but never saw another door. I was now at the tallest point of the mountain and the valley below was full of pinpricks of movement. Sheep moved like shifting sands and perhaps those people were walking through a town. This side of the mountain was nearly a cliff side, but I wasn't scared of falling. Oddly, I've never liked heights but this one seemed as if I couldn't fall, or if I did, I'd be all right somehow. I sat there in peace for I don't know how long. The lush, simple vista seemed like home.

I felt the wind shift and blow gently into my face from the valley. It seemed to draw me back to the tower. I rose and walked back towards the gate. The light of the sun was so golden, and birds were talking in the rows of trees. I felt as if summer had started, and everything was alive in fullness. I reached the gate just as I felt the earth shake. I spread my arms out to balance myself but there was nothing near me to grab hold of to steady me. I jumped back on the ground and within my skin as the gate of tree trunks swung open with a terrible sound. The tower entrance was open to me and that felt strange. This was a mountain of peace. I had been at a mountain of terror. Now what? Did I really need to go in there? I would need to be home in time for dinner after all.

The ground shook again and that same roaring voice sounded above the clouds.

    “Once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.” Everything around me shook but the tower didn't seem to be bothered. An olive tree fell over, roots exposed as the ground loosened. I looked once more at the beautiful, shaking landscape and ran into the open tower gate.

Stave III

Inside did not match the outside of the tower at all. Outside was an eastern fortress built for sieges, but inside I could tell was another era of design. The floor was cut stone and there were staircases, balconies, and floors going up and up and up above my head. I could see doorways going off into other spaces from each level. Some had velvet curtains pulled back with chains, or doors that stood wide, or just archways. Each doorway seemed to have a light of its own. Some glowed red, orange or golden while others emanated green or blue spaces within. There seemed to be movement or bustle in each of the spaces, but I couldn't hear anything distinct in the tower hall. It was a massive cylindrical tower where everything kept going up.

I stood on a bare gray stone floor on the first level. There were no doors on this level, and a grand staircase with red carpet led up before me to the second tier in the tower. There were at least six floors above me. Beyond that it was hard to be certain as I was thinking the top of the tower was covered in fog. Why would there be fog in the tower? I wondered. It had been a clear day outside. I spun again on the bottom floor of the tower, wondering how I would know which way or room to go to.

    “Welcome child.” I heard a familiar voice from the fog far above my head. I tipped my head back, craning to seen the speaker, not yet sure who it was. How would I know a voice in this place? I'd never been here before. It spoke again before I'd found it.

    “I heard you are angry with me.” I was very confused. Who was speaking? I had been outside, and I was content in the beautiful countryside. Before that I had been terrified at the mountain of fire and storm.

    “Oh!” I suddenly remembered aloud. Before that I'd been in my room, and I had been angry. I can't remember why after all the time and space I'd traveled. I remembered I had stomped my foot in rage before all this. I looked up at the foggy ceiling again, feeling like something was just out of my memory.

    “I remember being angry, sir. I just don't remember why at the moment. Where am I?” I asked. Then the man in white appeared. He somehow slipped out of the fog to stand on the topmost balcony of the tower that I could see, his clothes so effortlessly clean and I always the picture of disaster. I had the fleeting moment of embarrassment of always meeting him in my worst state of dirty and disheveled. He stood on the top level and placed his hands wide on the railing to lean over and look at me. I instantly remembered why I was angry.

I had been trying to meet with him for months now. I usually found him on accident all the time. But I'd realized a while ago he'd disappeared. He'd stopped coming to meet me. I had started trying to find him in my yard, at the park, in my tree fort, while in a mishap moment. All the places he uses to appear without me asking, he wasn't there. He never came to find me, and I couldn't find him. Then my mother had yelled at me, and I had wanted to talk to the man in white and couldn't still. He'd been gone for so long. He'd been gone for nearly a year when he'd promised to always be there. In that moment of stomping my foot, I'd wanted to hit his face for leaving me.

Now his face peered at me from six floors up and it was too kind. All the rage I had felt in my room returned. He had forgotten me. He had left me. He didn't keep his promises. He only did what he wanted for himself. All my girlish rage manifested in my mouth in preparation to yell. I knew if he came down the stairs, I'd hit him. I'd show him what it's like to never have a white shirt be clean.

    “You! It's you!” I stumbled on more words as my anger filled me to the brim.
    "Child, I'm here.”
    “Don't speak to me, you traitor! You have been gone forever! You've done nothing! I've been trying to find you. I wanted to listen to you and have your advice and you've been gone! Don't tell me you're here in a tower hiding. I've been looking for you everywhere!” I'd barely started my tirade and felt like I could make myself horse. The fog above started shifting and churning ominously.

    “Child, I never left. I've just been... quiet.”
    “Why? Didn't you see me? You always seem to see everything. You couldn't have told me you didn't have time or couldn't right now? You just thought to ignore me? Haven't you been paying attention? You failed me!” I screamed the last words and the air filled with the tension. I took a breath and as I did, blue lightening cracked from the fog overhead and cut through the tower, striking the ground in front of me. I jumped back as everything in front of me split in half, but in the flash of light from the bolt, everything went back right and whole. The blue flashed over the room as it crumbled, and all the dark gloom of the fog returned with the room unharmed.

I whipped around, confused, but then looked back at the man in white, even more angry.
    “What, you want to hit me with lightening? Go ahead. See if I care. Maybe it'll prove something. You only use someone while they're useful to you and then you strike them dead. I thought you were good! Right? Isn't that what they say? You're good and just and merciful? Guess you can't kill me if that's the story you're looking for. What is your deal?!” My voice cracked as another bolt of blue lightening hit the left side of the tower and everything jumped again. I saw wedges of the balconies break off and start to fall on my head and I ducked, but after the flash of blue, there was nothing broken, and I was cowering on the floor for no reason.

    “Stop that! Say something. Don't just intimidate me. Say something. SAY SOMETHING!” I shrieked. Lightening struck behind me, this time bright white, and the ground behind me cracked. After the strike, there was nothing but a white scorch mark on the stone floor. It made me so mad, I didn't even think it was my anger any more. It was all the anger.

    “You never help anyone! You don't help the sick. You don't heal! You aren't saving kids. You aren't coming through the prayers. You aren't hearing cries. YOU ARE NOT LISTENING.” The fog ceiling cleared, and I saw a deep blue galaxy, more complex than I'd ever seen in school or imagined. The room began to glow redder as the galaxy seemed to invade the tower atmosphere. The room began to have constant lightening. It seemed as if every time I blinked the room shifted from the solid tower of red to blue rumble falling on me and back again.

    “STOP IT! You aren't stopping the violence. You're not helping the hurting. Don't throw lightening at me for saying it. You're allowing war and murder. Everyone is in pain and you're here hiding in a tower? Hiding in a galaxy, far, far way?? Who are you? What's the answer here? I thought you were my friend!” I was crying again. Always crying. Always miserable around the man in white.

The man in white lifted a hand, palm outstretched to me.

    “Wait.”

Again. I am just a little girl. I couldn't believe he would say that word to any child, let alone me.
    “Wait? Wait? WAIT??” There were no words in my vocabulary for the rage that filled my entire being, so I screamed. Now I'm not sure if it was the galaxy or the tower or the man, but what came out of my mouth was unlike any scream I'd uttered before. It raged from my belly and filled my throat like a tree. Maybe it sprouted instantly or maybe it had been there all along. All I saw was the stars above me and time seemed endless and breathless as I released a roar of full capacity towards the heavens above.

When it ended, I fell backwards on my bottom and then just laid down looking up. The man in white looked down at me, calm and considering me.
    “So, you have found your voice. Then you'll have to fight me.” he said.

Stave IV

The galaxy shifted to a mixture of purple and green as the man in white began to put on his armor.
    “What?” I wasn't sure he heard me as the word seemed to ride a breath of confusion. Somehow, scads of armor was on the wall behind him and he began to put it all on in tiny pieces until he seemed clothed in tree bark. It looked like the odd exterior of the olive trees. I blinked and I did not recognize him. His helmet covered his face entirely and had 12 scraggly branches reaching off his head. He looked terrific and untouchable.

In one move, he jumped to the railing of the top floor and crouched there. His eyes glowed white fire in the open spaces of helmet, but the rest of his armor encased him in black. I had never seen him like this.
    “Are you ready to fight?” I sat up and looked around. There was no armor for me. There was nothing on my level at all and I had no weapon. I was splayed on the hard ground in black Mary Jane's, the lace of one sock had come loose and was dangling off my right ankle. My legs were bare, and my apron wouldn't provide protection from an armored man in white. He would knock me down instantly.

    “Are you serious??” I shrieked in confused desperation. He pulled a short blade sword from nowhere.
    “You said I am doing nothing. So, let's fight.” And then he jumped. He landed with a thunder crack before me in the tower. He filled the tower now, bigger than he'd ever been before. He was no longer the man in white but a giant warrior. His calf was wider than my whole body and I only measured up as high as his ankles.
    “You wanted to hit me child. Hit me.” he said simply.

I hadn't told him that. That sounded like the man in white who always knew what I was thinking. But it didn't make me less mad. Why was I so mad still? I couldn't fight him!

    “I don't have any weapons.” I delayed, trying to think of any option to fighting. His voice changed and it sounded like the roar I'd heard outside over the valley or over the mountain of darkness.
    “Do you think you could use any weapon against me? Faithless child, am I your master? I take you, from a city and from a family and I bring you here. Are you not mine?” I stood up quickly and backed against a wall, terrified uncertain. He extended his fingers and beckoned me to approach.
    “Fight me, child. Fight!” His roar filled the tower and the galaxy above.

He took a fighting stance and began circling me. The tower or him always seemed to make room for each other. My mind whirled as I circled to keep away from him. I didn't know how I'd keep away from him let alone fight him. Suddenly, there were voices from the stars above. I heard a one voice that roared of many waters and rumbled with the sound of loud thunder. The voice was sweet but final. There was the sound of others singing but it was a specific, lifting sound never experienced in humanity before. I thought it was thunder and at times I do think the galaxy cracked with blue lightning and thunder peals. Catching the words was difficult while circling the giant man before me, but something in me stretched to know their song. The voice was gone then but I heard faint chanting, and I risked looking up. There above was a ring of angels watching. Thousands upon thousands in lifted song, singing low and reverently as a chorus of cellos.

    “To the judge of all. To the spirits of the righteous made whole. To the mediator of a new covenant. To the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word. To the judge of all. To the spirits of the righteous made whole. To the mediator of a new covenant. To the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word.”

I looked down at the man again, wide eye and bewildered. He didn't hesitate in yelling, “Fight me!”
I think I screamed in terror as he lunged for me. I dashed away and kept a half pace ahead like a mouse darting away from an elephant. I kept away three or four times as he grasped for me, but I knew I couldn't do that forever. I'd get exhausted and faint. I had to fight. He wanted to fight. I stopped running. I turned to face him and made a runners start. I looked at his glowing eyes and ran. I was mad. I had no real reason anymore. It was every reason, burning in me. I wanted him. I'd wanted to find him. I had wanted to be with him, and he'd denied me that for months, nearly a year. This wasn't supposed to happen. Everything around me was falling apart in my small world. There was more beyond my ken that needed the man in white. And he was nowhere to be found. He was doing nothing.

The rage filled me again and I jumped. It was not my normal jump. I jumped and made it as high as his waist. I was bounding by his massive torso and made a punch at his ribs. I thought my hand was going to break on his tree bark armor. My hand ached but I landed and ran again. I bounced higher and kicked his bicep. He never even felt it. I landed on the ground and this time ran at his ankle. I kicked it, again and again until my toes cried. I ran a space away and he lurched to slice me with his sword, but I got away, panting. I bounced twice and realized I could get more height if I jumped three times. I took the momentum to launch my feet at his right shoulder. I sailed forward like a missile but didn't impact his armor at all. He caught me by the arm as I fell away.

    “Is that all that's in you? I've laid a stone of stumbling for you. Be offended here and it will break you before I do.” I dangled from his hand in rage and confusion. The wind picked up and the lightening flashed all around the unbreakable tower. I stared into his masked face with all I had in me.

    “Why are you being so awful? You leave me alone and forgotten for months and then you bait me and humiliate me with a fight? Why? I've done nothing so wrong. I've always come back to you. I've always found you before. I've been here when no one else was. Why? Why scare me with your armor and mountains and tower like I'm not the girl you came for? Why leave me alone after all this time? I have been sad, and I needed you and you weren't there.” I began to cry again.

The wind whipped feverishly for a moment, and I was suddenly the right size as the man. Instead of my whole being dangling from his fingertips, I was wrapped in his arms with only my feet swinging. His black armor pulled me into a tight hug against his breastplate of holy tree bark. At first it hurt so to be crushed against the hard armor. He squeezed me tight, and I couldn't breathe, and he squeezed harder still. The rush that filled the room silenced the angels overhead. The lightening stopped. The room stilled and hushed. I couldn't see as tears fell harder, but I could feel under my cheek, the dissolving of the armor. I was no longer crushed against the hard edges but held by the man in white's arms.

I cried and cried. I cried as if my guts were on fire. As if my chest would explode a geyser. As if my bones were liquid. My face burned and he held me, his face close to mine.

Some time, if time was measured anymore, he set me down on my feet and sat beside me. I didn't ask, I just climbed into his lap like an infant.

    “I am the one who put a precious stone, tried and true, tested and pure, a firm foundation before you. Don't fall against it. Don't be put off by it. Believe and do not be in haste child. I am moving. I am also removing. Trust this. Trust me and you will not be shamed. I have called you my own. Royalty of the highest family. A holy people. Eventually you will see the light again for all the present darkness. I have not forsaken you and I have not forgotten you. Trust me. It will be glorious in my own time.”