You walk up the trail. Stony, with thin grass and moss, high up. It snakes up the side of the mountain, but is still steep. Your boots crunch on the gravel. It’s become overcast: grey, and windy. There is a touch of dampness to the air. It’s not cold, but blows cool across your sweating brow.
You’re on the ridge now. You pause and look off to one side. There is a vast valley below. You pause. There are white objects scattered throughout it. You squint. Are they houses? Bales of hay in plastic? Some part of a mining operation? It’s impossible to gauge the distance. They could be large or huge; or maybe tiny.
You shake your head and sit down on a rock. There are birds flying. Buzzards. Circling over something, bu still quite high up; almost level with you. You watch them. You feel an urge; a force; behind you, compelling you to leap and fly with them. You don’t leap. Your feet know better. But you imagine: flying off the edge, and gliding. The force tugs and pushes. You almost enjoy it.
You hear crunching on the path and look over. A woman is hiking up the trail form the other direction toward you. She has hiking poles, and a beanie pulled down tight on her head.
“Hello,” she says and slows as she nears you, and gets out a water bottle. You nod. You’re circumspect. A lone female hiker on a trail should be careful. But this one is chatty.
“Are you coming from the huts? Going to another?” she asks.
“No,” you shake your head. “Going for a side trail.”
“Ah. So a day hike?”
You feel like you’ve been insulted. A more serious hiker would use the huts; she seems to be implying. You shrug.
You stand in silence for a moment, looking out over the valley. You wait for her to move on, but she doesn’t.
“Great view,” she comments and steps toward the edge.
“Yes, it is,” you agree. Your mind jumps to the thought that this could be a terrible pick-up line. You would say that it, now that she’s here. Or something like that. Not that you would ever really say that. Besides, you muse, if you’re going to say anything, it should be bold. You briefly imagine asking her if she wants to fuck. That would be gauche beyond all reckoning, and you have no great interest in her anyway. The mechanics, on the trail, wearing anti-wind shells, would also be awkward at best.
You look back at the buzzards, saying nothing.
“Wouldn’t it be amazing to just jump off, and turn into a bird?” she asks.
You’re surprised she’d voice this. It must be a common notion. But not to say it to a stranger on a trail. You open your mouth, considering whether to tell her of your own brief fantasy. But you see she is taking a step. You expect her to fake you out, and then grin — she seems like a grinner. But she doesn’t stop, and steps off the cliff.
Your heart skips a beat, but you don’t actually expect her to fall. It’s been such a strange encounter, you expect she’s stepped off knowing she won’t fall. She won’t fly either. She’ll step out onto an invisible layer of air, like a slippery dance floor, and just glide out over the valley, on a single level. This is what your mind expects in an instant.
You blink, and don’t see her any more. There’s no sound of her falling against rocks. You look down and there’s nothing. You gaze out: nothing. You search around the edge, and the trail, to see if she’s caught a branch. Not there.
Your heart racing, you stare at the spot she leapt from, wondering what to do next. When you hear crunching feet on the trail again. You glance up. There is the woman, grinning against the wind again.
“Hello,” she says. There is no irony or joke in her voice. She’s approaching you precisely as she had before. The same foot steps. The same gestures. Did you dream the first encounter with her? Was it all an apparition? But how did you know who it would be? Did you see her out of the corner of your eye before even saying hello? You shake yourself and say hello, trying to be friendly.
“Hi,” you say shakily, and nod.
“Are you coming from the huts? Going to another?” she asks.
“No,” you shake your head. “I came from the side. Up a side trail. Taking in the view.” It’s obvious you’re taking in the view, and you feel stupid for saying it.
“It’s a beauty,” she says, and steps closer to you and the edge again.
You think to lunge forward, and stop her from stepping over the edge. But she’s several yards away, and not that close to it yet anyway.
Your mind races for a way to divert her from the view.
“Do you want to make out?” you ask, as though you were offering her a sandwich.
She looks at you, maybe not sure she’s heard you right. Then she screws up her face and scowls. She turns and steps back on the trail and hurries away. She doesn’t say anything. You thought she would. She seems like the type to scold you. But you realize, now she’s nervous. Even fifteen feet down the trail, she glances back at you, seeing if you’re going to follow, be a threat, a problem.
You feel sick to your stomach. Guilty. You’ve ruined the rest of her hike. She’ll be looking over her shoulder the rest of the time. And you’ve confirmed that men are pigs. You shake your head and look at the ground. At least she didn’t step over the edge. Like in the dream. Like last time? Maybe you were given a chance, miraculously, to save her. And you did. Even if there might have been a better way.
You hear crunching again. You look back the other way. It’s the woman again. Coming toward you as she’s done twice now. It’s a reset. A loop. Groundhog day. She greets you as before.
“Hello.”
“Don’t step over the edge,” you blurt out.
She laughs, brushing the idea away, “I wasn’t planning to.”
You swallow. You look like an over-protective jerk.
“It’s just,” you mumble, “it can be tempting to want to fly.”
“I suppose so,” she allows. She steps forward and gazes out over the view.
“Do you think those birds ever get tired?” you ask.
“Some do. Then, I suppose they want to step onto the land, like we’d step out into the air.”
“And just, what, give up being a bird?”
“Maybe they become a person,” she muses.
You nod.
“Do you really think that’s happened?” you ask, not really believing it as you say it. It’s so new-agey. You sound overly credulous.
She looks at you with a grin and winks. “Don’t you?”
She turns, then, positions her poles, and proceeds down the trail. Crunch crunch crunch go her hiking boots. This time she doesn’t look back.
