Last Date With a Mountain

1. Moving Mountains

MOVING MOUNTAINS

MITCHELL

Ilove her. I love every part of her. From the pointed tips of her hiking canes to the pompom at the top of her beanie hat.

I knew I loved her the first time she set foot on me. The first time I felt her ascend to my tallest peak. The eager way she explores my forest. The way her strong thighs straddle my creeks. The way she probes deep into my caves. She wants to know all of me.

I know she loves me too. She shows that to me every time she climbs me. Steps on me. Marks her path along my side. Claims me as her own.

I am ready to be hers.

Before Jo, there was nothing. That’s how I know we are meant to be together. I only knew eons of dim nothing, with just the flickering passage of light as the sun passed over me and the faint rumble of the crust beneath me. The days were never distinguishable from each other until there was her.

Jo.

She visits me many times. Each time she comes to me, I feel a little more. The world seems to rise and swell with her appearance. The days get longer, waiting to see her again.

There’s more to see, more to feel, more to enjoy. When Jo is around, the haze of being thaws into immutable focus. The world is more than just existing. It becomes living.

There’s more than just wind and sky. There is weather.

There’s more than just dirt and rocks. There is Earth.

There’s more than just me and her. There is us.

Me and my beautiful, Jo.

She comes to me often; cleaning my trails and marking the landscape. I frequently get to enjoy the way her toes tickle my mulch. The tickle of her lyrical timbre in my timber. The gratuitous way that she stretches herself to scale my steep scarps.

That’s when I notice I can move.

I experiment with little things at first. Adjusting my creeks a few degrees, nudging my tree lines, raising and lowering my rocks. At first just to see what I am capable of, until I realize it’s for her.

Of course! That’s why I am given this new power. It’s so I can help my beautiful Jo.

I move handholds to make her rock climbing a little safer. I clear my brush to make her hikes more comfortable. I even manage to lower my internal temperature, so when she stops to rest her feet, to be sure she has a cool spring to dip her toes into.

And I don’t let other humans bother her. When she didn’t realize the man spotted her climbing down my cliffside and started following her down my decline, tracking her through my trees. It was an easy matter to quietly remove him.

I simply open a sinkhole beneath him, and then close it over top. No one needs to know how long he screamed for help from the bottom of my pit.

He is quiet now. That is all that matters.

Jo is mine. I would do anything for her.

I would move mountains.