By Jade Kleiner

Blahaj was mixing up an iodine packet when the maybe-body came flying down past her. She slightly looked up and saw someone in their 50’s – or maybe their 30’s? – plummeting, silently, with perhaps some dignity. But that was all Blahaj saw – a figure, dropping, instantaneous. On this nook of an outcrop on a bastard mountain, fingers shuddering in her gloves, Blahaj could not see where the figure had fallen from or where it had landed. A single meaty thump had hit her ears, signifying, at least, that something had in fact landed. But the meaty thump had left her ears as quickly as it came.

A little bit of snow drifted into the indent of the mountain she had made her camp in.

Blahaj took in the situation. Here she was, two days into the back country, a third of the way up the harsh side of a mountain. Mt. Slarr was known for having an easy side and a vertical side. She had, possibly, just observed someone free-falling down the vertical side. If that was the case, the plummeter was almost certainly dead.

The iodine packet was mixed in. Blahaj let the water bottle rest and tugged her hat and earmuffs a little tighter. Her left boot had gotten a little bit loose, so she dedicated two minutes to taking it off, changing her sock, and re-tying it. She ran a mitten along her backpack, her little tent half set up for the night. Her old climbing instructor had let her know about this nook, a little indent in the wall. It was cozy. Safe.

Very much not like the air that someone may have just plummeted down.

But why should she look? So she could see a body, down at the bottom, bent in ten kinds of askew, pooling with bile and skull flakes? Or perhaps the deed was not fully done. Maybe down there was someone who could truly, completely, fully use her help, a downed soul in need of a valorant rescue.

And what of that rescue? Blahaj was not medically trained. She was not a Wilderness First Responder.

She was not brave. She was not unusual. She was, sure, a solo hiker, and a climber, but she liked the solo part first. If there was someone down there, they only had a few minutes, an hour at best, before they died from their injuries.

Of course, she did have a satellite phone. She could call for help. Conveniently, however, it had stopped working last night, when she tried to call her Mom for good luck. Probably the batteries, and she had packed spares, but the speakers had warbled and given in. Now the technical malfunction could be life and death.

And this is, of course, a real problem. Not imagined. Blahaj had – she could swear – seen someone fall.

There had been a blur of a person, but within that blur, a distinct orange scarf just under two eyes full of terror. That had been a face. But did she see it? How rare that would be! Mt. Starr is not a tourist trap.

Only experienced hikers and climbers even cared about it. It wasn’t even particularly high, just sheer on one side – the side Blahaj had been climbing all day.

She could, of course, go and look. Peer down the mountain and see if there was a body, or someone cradling half a knee and calling up, relieved to see a friendly face. Blahaj could walk over, look down, and see if it resolved into a real problem. See if there was something to do.

Blahaj took a sip of the iodine. Then she took the poles for her tent out of their carrying case and spaced them out. Then she assembled the skeleton of the tent and pulled the weather-resistant fabric onto it. It was getting dark now. She took her headlamp out of her pack and lit the tent up.

She had to pee. Normally she would pee off the cliff face, but now was not normal. Instead she waddled over to the back of the cave-nook, squatted down, and pissed. She would have preferred to pee away from her sleeping quarters, but that would involve potentially looking over the precipice.

She tugged off her socks and replaced them. She put on her resting back country clothes. She lit her little heater. She went to sleep.

*

The sun came up. Blahaj woke and was struck by how lucky she was. She had a week off from work and her job as a bank teller was quite safe. She had all this nice gear. All her limbs still worked. Her mind was sharp. She really had it going on. And she was tired. So tired. She needed this vacation, and she had four days left before her boss, Mr. Sneebly, would be hitting on her again.

So Blahaj peeled off her socks and her pajamas. She put on her climbing clothes, snapped her tent up, packed up her bag. And she went to the edge of the nook. She did not look down. She started to climb.

*   *   *

Jade Kleiner is a writer from New England. Her writing can be found in manywor(l)ds, Haikuniverse, Neologism Poetry Journal, Gingerbread Ritual, and elsewhere. She istransgender and has practiced in the Plum Village tradition since 2020.