Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain by Jonathan Bloom (bookreader TXT) 📗

we are scared before battle, the contraries sit atop horses but seated backwards and holding a gun aimed at themselves. If floods took our fields or if drought killed our horses, the contraries would do all in their power to make us smile and ignore our pain.

“I no longer believe in that way, Aaron. There is no need to hold back. Why aren’t we dissuaded from laughter while tears are forbidden? Both make a sound. The enemy can hear either. We cannot be silent our whole lives. We must cry. We must cry because the world begs us to. It demands it of us. It pulls our hair and burns our skin and steals our most beloved things. And we are filled with salt water and have small holes near our eyes where the water wishes to escape. There are no enemies here, Aaron. You are among those who love you. Cry, Aaron. Cry for everything bad that has happened to you. Cry for everything joyful. Cry for the pain in your blood. Cry for the joy of having faced the world with a courageous heart.

“I love you, Aaron. I am here with you. It is okay. Cry.”

River Leaf did not need to ask it of him those last few times. He had begun. His gaze affixed on River Leaf, his eyebrows rose like a drawbridge and the tears rolled underneath. His mouth opened wide and let out a low sound, a keening, that went on and on without a breath of interruption. It became louder and then the waves of sound broke into a storm. He wailed and screamed and perhaps even laughed at one point. He was in the throes of a Primordial Emotion underlying all other emotions - neither good nor bad but simply overwhelming. Smiles appeared on occasion and then the corners of his mouth would fall back again to a pained scowl. The tears were all over his sunken cheeks and pillow.

Only a few words came out of Aaron during this time. “The view!” he cried, looking at River Leaf. “The view! It is so lovely!” His crying continued a little longer as his eyes trained up to the mobile. Then his crying stopped, the eyes ceased to blink, and he was gone. River Leaf rested her head on his still chest and wept.

When Chhiri Tendi awoke very late the following morning, he was the only person left in the monastery who was not a man-child. River Leaf had already scurried off during the night and no one saw her go. To this day her whereabouts are unknown. A very rattled McGee had left for Kathmandu even earlier, only an hour after Junk had died. He did not want to attend the funeral pyre that was part of the man-child’s religion (Actually, Mano said they were improvising because they had not actually had anyone in their group die yet) and a pair of man-children guided him back to the capital. McGee would return to Boston and stay himself; attending to Junk’s business, shooting dice, and on occasion, when no one was around, stealing away to New Hampshire for a quiet weekend hike in the mountains.

Chhiri Tendi’s first blurry visions of the day must have confused him terribly. Mano and all of the other man-children were dressed in (rather dated and dusty) adult clothing. “The nature of the clothing varied with the person”, Chhiri Tendi recalls. “Some wore kilts, others lederhosen, bowler hats, World War I American infantry uniforms, loincloths, you name it. Was I ever baffled.” Chhiri Tendi described Mano’s garb and I knew it to be the uniform of a young Brazilian tenente from the days of the revolts. Mano had grown since last time he had donned the uniform; skinny wrists and yellowed socks poked out and the shirt would only remain tucked for moments at a time. He and the others were packing pieces of luggage that also looked quite out of fashion and weathered. When Chhiri Tendi came in, utterly perplexed, Mano was placing several weeks’ worth of clothing, as well as dried meats and fruits, into a steamer trunk.

Chhiri Tendi remembers the discussion that followed in Mano’s room quite well:

“Some religions have expiry dates,” Mano said. “Take Christianity for example. When Jesus returns, the pope will be out of a job. And our little nameless religion is no different. We have fulfilled our hopes and we are ready to return to the world.”

Chhiri Tendi recalls asking a very stupid but understandable question at that point. “Nursing Junk during his death was your goal?”

Mano laughed. “What?! No. No, we have been good children. We have appeased the mountain.”

“How do you know?”

Mano put his arm around Chhiri Tendi’s shoulder and walked him to the open wall. The day before them was gorgeous. The warmth was overpowering, as if the entire Himalayan range had let down its guard and was willing to discuss any topic. The air was so dry, the blue sky so cloudless overhead that looking at the view without squinting was nearly impossible. Through those squinted eyes, Chhiri Tendi took in two images that seemed impossible but were indisputable. For one, Fumu’s summit was temporarily devoid of smoke. One could make out every detail of its ugly, tragic peak; a charred, misshapen lump abused by millennia of its own rage. The second vision was closer, and in some ways more spectacular; Chhiri Tendi found it even terrifying. He was looking now at the base of the ridge between Asha and Lata that crossed his line of vision only about one mile away. Rivers of high-pressured water shot out of dead lava tubes and spilled forth over every inch of terrain. It washed over rocks, trees, barley fields, the legs of grazing zopkyoks, and the even the supports of the monastery in which they stood. The sound of the flooding was not overpowering, but instead rather soothing; a calm river flowing beneath accompanied