Mountain peaks in June
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Tens of millions of years ago, two fragments of our planet’s skull made love. Back in those days, no creature could tell what was happening. Now, having reproduced and stratified a society by the billions, the humble but mighty sapiens has no trouble understanding something orders of magnitude beneath them. In heat, large slabs of earth rub against their fellows—a slow affair to the monogamous mind. Geoscientists insist that this is all plate tectonics, or platonic for short. I insist that they are correct. After all, who says that proximity and touch are not platonic ideals of connection? Still, the love of the fragments culminated in childbirth, siblings that point toward the sky under which their parents met.
On a late June day, we decide on a whim to see the tallest of the siblings for ourselves. Myself, mentally drained as I waltzed between work, school, doubt. A friend who emerged on the other side of his gap year, appearing just in time to help me across my own ravine. Another friend, reliable and omnipresent as Earth itself even when he lived on the other side of the country. Our paths converge and subduct themselves behind a license plate, and I soon find myself at the highest point of my life.
The end of the trail is a plateau that makes itself known by being a parking lot. I like to pretend that it had simply been there since conception, a testament to the fragments’ sense of humor. We take photos of each other on the pavement and painted lines, standing far enough to bask in the majesty of the mountain. To the lens, we are insignificant little men—wanderers before a sea of fog. To our own eyes, we are conquerors. Pursuing a decision made in a matter of seconds, we brought the summit before us and captured it at the press of a button. I derive a law of gravitation. The more I move the mountain closer, the more it moves me.
The completion of the sunrise makes the sunset inevitable, but we depart satisfied. During our victory march, our feet follow the light down with the confidence of gravity on their side. We are admittedly exhausted at the bottom. Our knees ache. My friend scrounges enough energy for the drive home, my other friend nodding off in the backseat. Still, we are left with the joy of realizing all that is platonic. Just a few minutes into the ride, I realize I need to get up early for work the next day. I unilaterally decide that I am still on the plateau with my friends, looking around in awe.
As much as I want out, I bring the mountain to work during the two days before summer break. The pictures on my phone remind me that I am a photographer. I am a magician of light, constantly adjusting the veil to conceal the dark side of the mountain. I keep the lights on even as dark festers beneath the surface like magma. After all, a stage without light is a cancelled performance, a mountain that erupts a natural disaster. The metaphor erodes when nobody asks me what I did over the weekend.
Geoscientists insist that even as fragments diverge, they create an opportunity for new mountains—the platonic happens when molten rock rises to the occasion. Come July, it becomes all the more excruciating for me to believe in them.
After descending the mountain, the last time I spent with my two friends was silent in the front row of a theater. From a sense of greater obligation, I ran the first ten minutes of the movie going back to my door, regrettably paranoid that I had left it unlocked. The film eventually runs its course too—protagonists express their gratitudes and bid farewell to each other. Nothing emerges from the rift where the fragments used to meet.
I catch another friend where a few hours of tangency remain and spend too much money on lunch. We talk about tectonics, how the plates go by in an instant and leave you alone to foot the bill. We talk about writing, so I share my old rocks. It hurts as they ooze down my hands, but she understands that they come from the core. Returning home after my escapades, I write my own seismogram. I delude myself into believing that fragments always converge as they open below me, that I am well-grounded despite how far I have fallen in the absence of the platonic.
The platonic divergence is justified by the new magic tricks they teach me over the summer. Getting your audience to capture photos of their entire mountain by imagining that it’s possible. Telling them about the dark side without showing them your own. Doing the government’s bidding since the others exist only within law—the mountains we make are all owned by the state. After months of constant weathering and free fall, it hits me at terminal velocity: I am at the bottom of the fissure. Is the fault my own?
On a late June day, I brought what I had prepared for a cave exploration at the foot of a mountain. Meat sticks and yogurt pouches, two per person in case anyone got hungry. A garbage bag to leave nothing behind. A jacket to brave the cold and flashlights to lead the way. We discover too late that people’s hunger for the dark side of the mountain left it consumed by the lights—my friend and I sit with the chagrin of our oversight. Nothing happens on the drive, so I wait for something new to form. Earth responds telepathically though its skull fragments.
On a late June day, my other friend decides to buy a gratuitous amount of Pocky at the Asian supermarket for the consolation prize of a balloon. Faithful to the brand, its shape speaks for itself. We get an immature but hearty laugh out of it: the choking hazard label on the side, its literal inflated size, its stature dwarfing the meat sticks in my bag. We bring our fourth member and snacks into the car, but nothing happens on the drive. Earth refrains from responding as I wait.
On a late June day, we bump into an older man on the trail. He preaches of a beautiful sunrise up north that only shows itself to those who work for it. After changing course, I realize Earth had been responding the whole time, disassembling its surface into puzzle pieces for us to put together ourselves. Our weary bodies crave time during the ascent—I feed everyone just enough to have seconds. My friend is not fond of the meat sticks but remembers how the other got his balloon. He shakes him down as a share of happiness. Our minds take over at every stop by making conversation, ending it, drinking and chewing in the solitude of the mountains to give silence a standing ovation. I am able to bundle up as we reach the top, shivering yet warm as the faithfulness of the preacher’s sermon.
On a late June day, the final fragments fall into place. I show everyone how bright the flashlights are as the sky dozes off around us, but we come to understand that a friend is someone who embraces you on the dark side of the mountain. We return to the camp. Words fail as we indulge in the last bit of yogurt, delivered fresh out of the refrigerator called nature. At the end of our journey, there is nothing left of us—we return to civilization empty, reposed in a hearse, bearing the memories of our companionship. The procession moves at a crawl, but what embodies the crawl more than the platonic? What are long moments of silence, if not memorializations of love?
Tens of millions of years ago, two fragments of our planet’s skull set themselves in motion. Perhaps even today, no creature can tell what was happening back then. However, in addressing the theory that they went their separate ways, geoscientists insist that separation is a misnomer. In divergence, the mountains will eventually rise in memory of what once was, bridging the gap to show what could still be. In isolation, large slabs of earth endure through periods of geologic time, all in the name of plate tectonics.
Holocene Epoch. June 22, 2025. I hold the fragments of my skull together just long enough to etch the date into bone.