Chapter Two

So many different people had been inspired by the mountains. I had heard tales of inspiration, of love, of sanity, from these mountain travelers. Leading into the hillside was a and narrow pathway, a more travelled line towards the peaks than any other through the surrounding scrubby pine. I decided to follow it. Contact with other people was never something to run from, at least not at first.

I drew my pack closer to my back. Dusting the dune brushstrokes from my leggings took a minute but would leave less of proverbial footprint on the surrounding scrub as I pushed through. I was thinking though of a time when the cloth was spun so fine that dust would not stick to it. Fabrics out of liquid, proofed against water and fire alike. As if the wizards of our long past imaginations had covered fibre with spell. I could a hear a rumbling ahead.

Pine scent began to overwhelm the surrounding desert winds. I was growing tired of the gentle slope covered only in sharp needle trees. There would be a long sought relief in softer altitudes.

Days of this thought echoed throughout the hillsides in my imagination. Was this the inspiration I was seeking, that solitude was not silence? Layers of senstivity over delicate mechanism. A thought? A person? A civilization? The echoes were of another world and life, of childhood. As the pine trees gathered behind, and the journey pulled up further towards unknown, perhaps the course fabric of life would weave delicate once more in my head.