Every single time, I believe it will be different. The mountain is so perfect: an almost flawless cone. There are no false summits here, no confusion of peaks. Just one gently rounding point.
Every single time, I pause. I catch my breath. I rest my cheek against my cool burden, brace my legs, hamstrings taut against the slope, and plan my next move.
It is, clearly, a matter of balance. The summit is small, but not unmanageably so. It is rounded, but imperfectly so. My rock, while spherical enough to roll, has three angular faces. If I can position one of these correctly on the summit, my work will be complete.
And yet, every single time, up here where the air is thin, my rock holds only for a moment. I position it. I test its balance. I gently—oh, so gently!—remove my hands. And, every single time, gravity takes it. I watch it tumble, gathering speed, until it thuds across the black sands around the mountain and slows to a stop. Always, I have noticed, it bounces in the self-same pattern and lands in the exact same spot.
It feels important to me that I let the rock complete its fall before I begin my slow and careful journey to rejoin it. I don’t know why. The rock and I share a sacred bond. The rock is my duty. I know nothing else. I am nothing until I have rolled my rock into its proper place, balanced on the summit of the mountain.
***
This time, I always feel, it will be different. It has to be. Starting the ascent is always the hardest part. The whispering sands clog my rock. It bumps and jags; it will not roll. My shoulders strain for every jerky, lumpen rotation. Although I have to contend with gravity on the mountain, the smooth surface simplifies my task.
Sometimes, I find myself in flow. I forget everything but my god-given mission. The rock and I become one: its cool facets nestled against my straining chest, its curves embraced by my strong arms. This is what I was born to do.
There is little to savour when I reach the summit. This is a dark, dark place. Huge vultures perch on a giant’s emaciated ribcage and tear chunks from his exposed liver. A group of women carry leaking water jugs across the plain from a dark river, again and again. A man stands in a pool of water below a vine, with a rock that looks the exact twin of mine suspended above his head. He bends to drink and the water flows away; he raises his hand to pluck a grape and the vine wriggles away like a grass snake.
Perhaps, I sometimes think, once I have completed my task, we could be friends. It might, I think, be pleasant to leave this mountain. I am even, sometimes, curious: How similar our rocks do seem!
I am not lonely, however. I am never lonely. The rock is my companion. It is my purpose. I cannot remember a life other than this.
***
This time, it is different. I am labouring across the sands when a clamour of divine music echoes across the gloomy skies and a warrior materialises on the darkened plain. He is armed, with a shining golden sword and long blonde locks. He seems sharper than the rest of us, somehow. More vivid. More clearly defined.
I inspect my limbs and then I inspect my rock. Our outlines are not perfect, like this man’s. They are, I notice with a rush of horror, jagged, composed of many tiny cubes. These same minuscule building blocks comprise my mountain. The sands that I have trudged across so many times are blocks, not grains.
The music feels like it is mocking me. It is martial, orchestral, with pounding tympani and dynamic brass. Suddenly, I recognise my own position. I stand beyond futility, within the tragicomic space of the absurd.
As the warrior strides across the plain towards the giant, the music builds to a crescendo. I realise he intends to slay the vultures. He has choices that the rest of us do not.
I want to go to him, admire him, inspect the many vibrant colours of his deeply textured hair, the finely detailed muscles that play around his breastplate, the lovingly dyed sandals that bind his bulging calves. He is so much richer, so much more real than me.
I am desperate to reach him, to touch him, even. But I can’t move. My mind strains, but, as if in a nightmare, the muscles it is reaching for do not respond.
It is as if the rock and I are a single system, locked in an eternal dance. I cannot exist without my rock. I am nothing without my rock.
The warrior raises his sword; the vultures squawk and squirl; the giant groans; the music reaches a crescendo; and the great birds’ heads tumble to the plain. As the hero reaches for the giant’s bonds, a divine voice booms from high above: ‘Player One! Tartarus mission complete.’
I place my cheek against the cool stone and tense my pixellated deltoids. My rock is my burden, my mission, my role in this great game. I have no choice but I must act as though I do. Just one more push, and the rock and I will be on the mountain slopes again.
British but based in Bali, Theodora Sutcliffe is a freelance writer. She has been shortlisted for the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize and longlisted for the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize, and recently completed Curtis Brown Creative’s competitive entry Writing Your Novel course.