Here is some flash fiction for you. Enjoy.
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Oh I shall die on the mountain. Solitary; strong willed. The mountain has willed it since I can remember. It is bold in my memory. It is where I shall die, on that misty field, below that black forest. That is where I will breathe my last breath, gasping silently, trying to catch one last molecule of oxygen, keep it inside and pass it around the organs, keep them stirring. Keep the heart pumping. The town is dying so slowly, choking on its own placidity. It is inactive, but restless. It itches to be free from something. No, not itches, squirms. It writhes under the weight of its own stillness. It is dying now, or is already dead. The people sleep so soundly under that distant sky. Under that damned mountain. The silent voyeur, watching the sleeping villagers, watching and crawling around beneath itself. It is a vulgar sight, that mound of earth.
It had a name, long forgotten. There are probably those that remember it, but that doesn't matter. There are other mountains in these parts, all lower, less imposing. They have their own towns; their own villages. They have their own creeps to watch, and lust after. They all have their names, the mountains and the towns, all long forgotten. Only the sleeping people dream the valley awake, with the names on their tongues, keeping the dream alive when they rise in the morning full of steam, full of vigilance, full of screams about their lives. The mountains are silent and reserved. Never speaking, never commenting, only silently watching and causing no pain. No feeling whatever. Only one of the mountains of the valley torments me, though. It is alone in that respect. I belong to the one town, the village. Whatever it is, it is my home, and I live there. I belong to the town they call Green. It was named Green after the hills and pockets of forest that bear that colour in the spring time. I am tormented by only one mountain, just as I inhabit only one town, the town of Green. Green is the smallest town of this wretched valley, but it boasts the highest mountain. In fact I would go so far as to call the other mountains (say that of Blue, or Heather, or Grey) mere shadows of my mountain, that is to say the mountain of Green. I would not call them mountains at all, but rather hills, misshapen calamities of the earth that have formed around the sudden arrival of the human race. They are afterthoughts, certainly. All my life I have lived in the terrifying shadow of one mountain. The sublime mountain of Green. Every morning I would fix my gaze on it - staring out of my window. Twenty or so years until I moved on from that place, to another valley, equally low. But that was not the last of it. These things have a way of haunting you, following you in your steps. It has never appeared in my dreams though. I rarely dream. Not like the rest of Green, or its brothers. When I do dream it is of the lesser things. Bodily functions, intakes, excretions, ejaculations and so on. Detestable stuff. The mountain haunts me in other ways, it crawls with me in the back of my head.
There is a house at the foot of the mountain, beyond the town, on the outskirts. No one lives there anymore, no one has lived there for years now. It has long lain empty, amid the trees. That is where I will spend my last night, for it is certain that I shall end at night, when no one is watching. If I were to bid this world farewell in the early afternoon or even the evening, well, that just does not seem possible. It is not as I have imagined it, or foreseen it. No, I know I will die one night, or early one morning in that filthy old house, up there on the slopes of that misty deep. No one will buy it. I am sure it must belong to someone, although they do not use it for anything, so I am sure that I will be fine to pry open those wooden doors, when the time is right.
I spent my childhood staring from my window out into the night, eyes resting on the mountain and the house - white and pure. It was not at all dilapidated then. When I was a boy I would watch Mr Williams outside that house, chopping wood. I would watch him with an old pair of binoculars my grandfather had given me. He used to watch the birds in the garden, my grandfather that is. There were many birds in our part of the country. Life all around. Spring was green back then, summer golden. Skin gleaming with oil and flesh on show, a slight zephyr bringing the scent of mountain heather rippling down the hillsides and into the nostrils. Sometimes Mr Williams would work without a shirt, causing pulses of pubescent excitement to run from my eyeballs to my groin. A passing phase, no doubt. In all my years, Mr Williams' bare chest, swinging the axe, was probably the closest I have come to finding real human love. Certainly I have loved, it is beyond doubt. But more than that man, or any man, or any woman; more than that I love that mountain. Mr Williams is now quite dead. I had visited his grave; I had attended the funeral. Perhaps not in that order. He left no widow, no children. I often think my early fantasies are all that is left of Mr Williams. The mountain remains.
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