A Man's Peak
Patrick stood at the top of a mountain and was proud of all he accomplished. The trees rose up to him, the boulders were tamed underneath. The sun sank slowly below the horizon. Shades of red and yellow followed the orb, glowing for a bit before going blind in the night, stars spreading as if after a punch. The wind picked up and the trees swayed. The boulders disappeared.
He counted the stars for a moment. He then put them into his mind like collected coins, growing bored but not tired or timid.
While the darkness touched him, he did not realize it. His thoughts were elsewhere, landing on the subject of his wife. She needed to die for all she had done, memories made his eyes burn.
He knew how he would do it. First, he would watch her carelessly fall asleep and then taint her blonde hair like an embarrassed apple.
The law of the land had left a long time ago. A man had to become God to survive. A man had to be the judge.
He waited until she went to bed. As her eyes slid down, he smashed her skull with the hammer. Taking her body and sheets, he pushed her down the peak’s slope, a forgotten corpse no one would care for, and she deserved it being the bitch she was.
“Dad, where is mom?” Patrick’s son asked at dinner.
“She ran away.”
“Where did she go?”
“To heaven,” Patrick returned.
A few weeks passed, and Patrick’s son asked more and more about heaven.
“When is mom coming back from heaven?”
“You don’t come back from heaven. Everyone is happy there. They do not want to leave,” Patrick said.
“I want to go to heaven,” he returned.
“You will after you die.” Patrick left the table and went back to his spot on the peak of the mountain. The evening sun winked at him as it fell under the Earth.
There was a loud noise and a gun went off. Patrick didn’t hear the blast but fell down the side of the mountain, and his son’s ears rang from the weapon. Summer’s air remained warm, swirling securely around the boy. He counted the stars in the sky. The metal gun went off again, but the child never remembered it. His small body collapsed on the peak, a pool of dark liquid surrounded him but no one knew that. The trees swayed in the wind. The boulders stayed below, covered by dark shadows.
The stars can’t count themselves as lucky.
A man can only conquer himself.
No tree ever hears this.
