Author’s Note: This is a continuation of Farren’s journey through a limbo world where everyone is trying to reach the peak of a mountain but have a rope tied to their ankle. Start here or with Part 1.
Farren and Hazel tugged at the rope. It had been stuck for three days now, and Farren knew an argument was coming. It always happened after a few hours of tugging at the rope. Hazel dropped the line from her hands and let out an exasperated sigh of frustration. Her grey hair was a mess from wrestling with the line.
Farren followed suit and put the rope down but held back his sigh. Hazel sat on one of his balls of rope leaning against a tree. She’d gotten used to taking the liberty of using them as cushions over the past few months of traveling together.
“You going to go on today?” She asked him. It was the preamble to the argument she seemed eager to have every time she was stuck.
Farren looked at the trail of rope that led away from the area they were stuck in. “No, not today.”
“You really should. I’ve been holding you back more and more lately.” Her tone was encouraging, but Farren didn’t have the heart to leave her wandering in circles again.
“I’m not going to leave you. Honestly, you’re doing more good for me than I thought you would.” Farren knew it was a weak argument, but it was the best he had.
“Likely story,” she said as she blew air over her lips to prove how much she doubted his claim.
“No, really, your rock will come free and then we’ll be making progress again. It’s a good rhythm.”
“Yeah, but what if it doesn’t come free this time?” She asked.
Farren was used to this question, and it always came at this point of the argument. “It will come free. It always comes free.”
She rolled her eyes, “Just because it always has come free doesn’t mean it always will come free.”
Farren shrugged, “it definitely won’t come free if we just sit here and gab about it.” Gab was a word he’d learned from her, and he had just learned how to use it properly.
She rolled her eyes, and he smiled at her. “Fine,” she drew the word out to show that while she may be agreeing to continue, she wasn’t thrilled about it. Hazel kicked her ankle up to her hand and was able to grab her rope from there. She handed some of the slack to Farren, and they resumed pulling.
At the count of three, they pulled against the rock, then it gave. Immediately Farren fell backward landing on top of Hazel. He rolled off of her and turned to see her sitting up in the dirt of the forest floor rubbing her head cursing.
“Sorry about that,” Farren said.
“Don’t be,” she said in a tone that didn’t convince Farren she’d truly forgiven him. “The rock’s free.” She said with a smile raising her rope to show some slack.
The pair stood up and dusted themselves off. Soon they were hiking up a gradual incline while Farren collected his rope and Hazel pulled her line behind her.
“Think this is the mountain?” She asked as they took a break huffing from the exhaustion of climbing the small hill.
Farren laughed. He was the only one of the two of them who had seen the mountain. “No, it wouldn’t have snuck up on us like this. You can see that thing from a distance.”
Hazel sighed, “well let’s get to the top of this hill at the least.” She made the kicking motion with her foot, and Farren wondered how many times she had practiced it to get good at it.
He began collecting rope and heading towards the top of the hill when he noticed that Hazel wasn’t behind him. He could tell because he heard her cursing, a usual sound, but as he walked, the cursing got further away. Farren turned to find that she hadn’t made any progress from where they had stopped to rest. He turned back down the hill to meet her.
“The damn thing is stuck again!” She shouted at him.
“It’s fine,” He said calmly.
“We just got it unstuck,” she complained, “we haven’t even moved that far.”
“It’s fine,” Farren repeated.
Exasperated Hazel started tugging on the rope maniacally.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Farren repeated calmly attempting to keep the grey-haired woman from hurting herself. “Everything fine, don’t worry about it. You’re wasting a lot of energy just yanking on it like that.”
Hazel threw her rope down on the ground, and it kicked up a cloud of dust. She moved downhill towards a tree sitting in the only direction she could go. Slumping against the tree, Farren thought she looked like a pile of cloth that was dropped on the ground.
He considered asking what was wrong but knew it was a silly question. Instead, he settled with saying, “Everything’s going to be alright Hazel.”
She rolled her eyes as if that was all she needed to do to prove he was wrong.
“We’ll get unstuck. We always get unstuck. Don’t worry.”
“What happens when I don’t get unstuck?” She followed the question with a disheartened sigh. “Or, even worse I stay stuck for so long that you decide to go on without me. You never get stuck.”
“I get stuck too,” he said knowing it was a weak counterpoint, “but I’m also not making progress towards anything aside from my rock. You’re at least trying to move towards the mountain.”
She shrugged, “There’s no point. One of these days I’m going to get so stuck that you’ll have no choice to leave me. Maybe I’ll be stuck a week, or a month, or a year, but eventually you’ll get fed up with being stuck in one place.”
“You’re not going to get stuck that long.”
“You don’t know that,” she almost shouted the statement.
“I’ve met a lot of people, the only people who stay stuck are the ones who want to stay stuck. Do you want to be stuck forever?”
“No,” she said adding extra syllables for emphasis.
“Then let’s try and get the rock unstuck,” Farren bent over to pick up her rope.
“It’s just going to get stuck again,” Hazel said with all hope withdrawn from her voice.
“Then we’ll unstick it when that happens as well. The first person I met here was a woman who was at the base of the mountain and kept moving despite repeatedly being stuck. She just kept tugging at the rope and became free eventually. She was at the base of the mountain yet she still found a way to be unstuck.”
“Yeah, and I haven’t even seen the mountain, and I’m constantly getting stuck. That’s not hopeful evidence.”
“Don’t think about the mountain, I shouldn’t have brought it up. Just think about making it to the top of this hill and then the top of the next one and eventually, we’ll get somewhere.” Farren wasn’t sure if following his rope would lead her to the mountain, but Hazel seemed to be happy with the progress.
“Fine,” she said with a tone that showed it might be less work to agree and get unstuck than continue to argue with Farren.
The pair spent a week getting unstuck from the spot Hazel was stuck in. They spent another week and a half at each of the next three places her rock got stuck. Then they made some progress, almost a half day of travel up the hill. As soon as Farren said, “I think we’ll make it to the peak of this thing before nightfall,” Hazel tripped and cursed.
Farren turned around, still worried even though he knew what was happening. “Are you okay?”
She glared at him as if his question was an insult, then her expression softened, “It’s fine, just stuck… again.” The fall scraped her knee, and Farren saw some blood as she rolled up her pant leg to examine it.
“Ouch,” Farren reacted.
“I’ll live,” then she gave him a dark smile at the humor.
He smiled back but didn’t think her moral was up for too many more jokes. Farren helped her to her feet, and she dusted herself off. He bent over to pick up her rope to start the routine of getting her unstuck.
“Don’t,” Hazel said as he bent down. She kicked her foot back to put the rope out of Farren’s reach.
“What?” Farren said standing up.
“It’s not worth it. Just go up to the top of that hill and see what there is to see. You said you could make it there before night. Just come back and tell me what is up there.”
“Why do you care? It’s just a hill. What we see from up there will be just some more trees and forest. Like what we see looking down this side.” He gestured at the view behind them.
“No, this is a hell of a hill. Something doesn’t want to let me make it to the top.”
Farren was doubtful of this, but he said, “I’m not going to the top of that hill without you. Even if it means it takes us a year to make it.”
“What if it takes two years?” She asked.
“Then it takes two years. I have all of an eternity stuck in this place. I’m not in any hurry to get to my rock anyway. All odds point to it being unmovable, and that’s my own fault.”
“You didn’t know what you’re getting yourself into. It’s kind of like how you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into when traveling with me.”
“Come on. Let’s move this thing.” Farren stepped on her rope keeping her from kicking it away from him again then picked it up.
He heard Hazel sigh, but since she was behind him, he missed out on the elaborate eye roll he knew she was making at him.
Farren hunkered his feet down and got a good grip on the rope. “Ready?”
“Yeah,” Hazel said unenthusiastically.
“1-2-3,” Farren counted then he heaved on the rope. Immediately he felt it move out from the obstacle that hindered it.
“Holy cow,” Hazel exclaimed in amazement.
Farren felt her drop the rest of the rope, but he wasn’t done. He kept pulling on the line dragging the rock closer and closer to them. It wasn’t light, but he could drag it alone with a little effort.
“What are you doing?” Hazel asked with confusion.
Slack started piling up in stacking loops next to Farren. Between breaths and heaves, he said, “I’m finding out if you’re going to get stuck again before we reach the top of that hill.”
Hazel gave him a cockeyed look, but he ignored it and kept pulling. The line got stuck after he’d piled up what he assumed would be a little over a hundred yards. Hazel jumped in at that point to help him unstick it, and the pair made quick work of that obstacle.
By the time night fell Farren and Hazel had pulled what Farren thought was about four hundred yards of rope. He looked up the hill where the sun was setting, and he estimated that the crest was not much more than three hundred yards.
“That should be good enough,” Farren said, “We’ll be able to make it to the top of the hill in the morning. Nothing can stop you now.”
That night Farren could barely sleep. From the rustling and moving that he heard from Hazel he figured she was having the same problem. When the first glint of sunlight came over the horizon behind them, Farren was on his feet. When there was enough light, he saw that Hazel was wide awake leaning against a tree messing with something in her hands.
“You ready to go?” She asked. Farren noticed the thing she was messing with was her rope. It had been braided in an elegant pattern and was thicker and shorter than before.
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
As he said it, Hazel pulled on both ends of the rope and the braid she had made withered away into a single strand of rope again. “Let’s go,” she said with eyes full of fury and intent.
They covered the steep ground in silence, and it only took them a half hour to reach the crest. Farren felt like he was the one slowing them down this time as he had to knot his rope into its balls and Hazel merely had to let out her compiled slack. She walked slowly for him, and he was grateful even though he knew she was eager to get to the top.
As they crested the top of the hill, the sun seemed to do the same behind them. The sun projected the red and purple colors of morning onto the unbelievable sight in front of them.
“I can’t freakin’ believe it,” Hazel said as she looked at what stood in front of them.
Farren was stunned by what he saw in front of him as well. He leaned against a tree worried he’d fall back down the hill.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Hazel repeated unable to hide the excitement from her voice. Out of the corner of his eye, Farren could see her bouncing up and down. But he refused to drag his eyes from the behemoth that was in front of him.
“Farren are you okay?” Hazel asked grabbing his arm.
“It’s really there,” Farren said injecting a bit of a question in the statement.
“Yeah, it’s there,” Hazel answered slowly.
“It’s so close, but I left it so far behind,” Farren said. He felt like his world was spinning and he had to sit down against a tree.
Hazel laughed at the statement. “Did you never consider that the world was round?” She asked.
Farren shook his head. The thought had genuinely never occurred to him. “I just assumed the gods created this world as a flat plane extending to infinity on all sides.”
Farren took his gaze off the mountain long enough to see Hazel rolled her eyes at this statement. Then he quickly looked back as if the massive thing would disappear if he didn’t look at it.
“It’s so close. We’re going to make it.” Farren finally said as he collected his thoughts.
“No Farren, you’ll make it. I’m turning back.”
“You’re what?” Farren said confused and unable to put the pieces together.
“I’m turning back. I’m tired of getting stuck. I know where the mountain is now. It’s only going to get harder from here.”
“Yeah, but we’ll get you unstuck when you have a hard time.”
“No, it’s too much time and work and energy. It’s frustrating that my rock constantly holds me back. Last night I didn’t sleep. I just played with the slack, and it felt so freeing. I can’t explain it. This morning was effortless. I want the rest of my ascent towards the mountain to be that way.”
Farren looked at Hazel and her face, for once, wasn’t doing something strange to undermine her point. “You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
Farren gave her a look but understood the sentiment. “I guess I am happy for you.”
“You finally converted me to your ways.”
“I’ll miss the company,” Farren said as he stood up.
“Me too, but I’ll always remember you.” She said as she moved to hug him.
Farren embraced her with his head rubbing against her grey hair. He felt a warm tear roll down his cheek, and the water was salty on his lips. He was close to the mountain again, but he’d met and left so many memorable people in the process.
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