The Climber's lip curled around the word, and there was some sense of disdain in his muttering. “...terraces.”

His drinking companion-- lock of hair hopelessly falling in front of his eyes-- seemed to understand the Climber's reference, and deliberately drank the remaining swill in his mug, as if there was enough amnesia in a pint to ease his wrinkled brow, and as if he knew the story well, and knew that he was about to hear it again. Raising the empty mug slightly before setting it down, he coughed “You made it, oh comrade, you did, and you're better for it!” Again pushing the hair away from his eyes, he looked nearly satisfied that he’d summed the whole thing up in a handful of words, except for that beaten, faraway expression that his hair couldn't quite hide.

The busy lock of hair had already fallen back across his tired face, and through it he darted a glance at the Climber sitting across the table from him in the dim pub. Not only did he understand the significance of the Climber's word ’terraces’, he was part of the story, and he had been there.

They both noticed at once that the Climber had not touched his mug. With a careless snort, the Climber then slid the ale across the rough table to his drinking companion's grateful hands, and with a scarred voice to match the furniture's knife-marked surface, began to growl.

“Terraces, that was how we were sorted and kept. But we were low, nearly on the bottom, lower than the crawdads and underneath their yapping little mudpuppies.”

The Climber groaned his next words, while his drinking companion appeared to be satisfied now with hearing the story again, and had already taken a hearty drink as he listened, and then another as he nodded along.

“We thought we wanted to get out, and everybody wanted to climb that terrace to the next level, we were so sure, we were, that up was the way that would pay, so sure that gravity itself was working against us. How wrong we were! Gravity was, all along, pointing us to the gold, like a compass.”

He squealed with a most unexpected high-pitched tone, but it easily cascaded into a bouncy laugh pointed down towards his chest. “While the level that we stood on was always crumbling away, and while we hoped that something of value would spill down from the levels above before we tumbled, we never dreamed of looking at our very feet, and that gravity was indeed telling us a truth of nature; telling us that if we truly sought only gold as our prize, then we would best seek that treasure in the lowest of ravines, just as lost coins always end up rolling down to the lowest part of the sidewalk-- of course we should have searched there, if money was truly our quest. Nobody looked down though, we were busy scaling up that terrace wall, climbing each other like crabs in a bucket, and at any time we could have stopped looking up, but we didn't stop, did we?”

The drinking companion quietly put his mug on the table-- he had never heard this version of the story before, and one of his worried eyebrows had relaxed into curious anticipation as he sat otherwise perfectly still, staring at the back of his hand as if he’d never noticed it before, listening carefully as the Climber's coarse voice continued.

“We didn’t seek that kind of gold though did we? We climbed and we fell, and we did both of those things very well, but never imagined that up there was just a bigger one of these, while down there was really only a finer version of this, but how would we know? We were taught that up is good, but that up-ways was not easy traveling, and we are told that down is bad, and is as easy as stumbling and falling. Strive to ascend to the next level, and you’ll be both praised and hated by the others. If we are cast down by fate, or if we fall from a collapsing terrace to the one below, we are shunned and pitied. It’s clear now... what we should do-- what we must do, now that we know. My question then, is are you with me?”

The drinking companion was forced to study the question, and truly all of his tools and skills were devoted to climbing upward, always seeking the next terrace above, but beat and now slightly drunk, he was ready for anything, and he sat forward as he clutched the cool ale.

“So, we are going to climb back down then?”

The Climber finally leaned forward into the lamplight, and there on his face was a tired look of exasperation. “No dummy, we’re staying here! Haven’t you been listening? This is it! We have arrived, and if you think about it, we are here. From here, our quest is inward, we become psycho-nauts of inner space, exploring a world that most don’t dare. No longer will we fuss with harnesses and yoke, we have an infinity waiting within. No more do we climb and fight the flow, now we stay put, as there is really nothing more important. Will you stay, now?”

The drinking companion frowned sadly, and then sighed. He looked up with a slow shake of his head and spoke softly, as if testing the Climber's friendship and the world’s mercy with the breath that it took to utter his reply. With a perplexing mixture of both bravery and shame, he spoke his answer. “I need to go to the latrine!”

---

thanks for reading another oddity from the Library of Unusual Twists, and thanks for the support and encouragement from you all, and of course more of this will appear here soon

images by me- colored pencil on watercolor paper 2017

@therealpaul