Silent Fields We had been hiking for half a day by the time we reached the base camp to Mount Fairfield. My feet were blistered and my clothes were wet with sweat. I looked like I had gone into a sauna with my clothes on, but that didn’t stop me from winking at the crew of women mountaineers that we passed on the way to base camp two hours earlier. I lit a cigarette as I walked; I deserved it. I’m not one who smokes, but, at the time, smoking was a way to look independent, chic almost. We had gone probably fifteen miles that day. The stars had begun to come out, and the wind stopped howling. It was peaceful besides the fact that the mountain, rocky but not snowy, was much more menacing than it looked in the travel brochure. My crew kept walking.
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There was an apricot glow coming from the area we had crossed moments before. It was probably that dirty navajo man we passed earlier, I thought. He’s probably burning his trash or making a smoke screen or something, I thought. He’s probably crazy, I thought.
“Hey guys, we have to double time it to base camp. Let’s shoot to leave in two,” said George as he switched his walkie talkie off. We all got off the rocks. Some of us tied our shoes; others drank a little water; I paced around. Once the bowling balls in the back were ready to move, we started down the path. The light behind us was getting closer, and the wind was smacking us with the smell of burning shrubs and plants. I put a scarf over my nose as we entered the boundary of base camp, which was smaller than I expected. George told everyone to go to their tents, and he looked through his binoculars again. “ Something started that fire over there, that’s for sure,” he said, and then he put his binoculars back in his rucksack and went to bed. The fire was getting closer, and planes had started to circle it overhead and there were sirens in the distance, screaming like animals. I sat down on a outcropping near camp and watched the fires dance. I didn’t know what started it, but I got an odd sense of guilt watching the blaze. I felt like I was watching a battle scene of an old war movie on the television back home in Maine, but I could smell the burning, and I could taste the …show more content…
The roads were slick with the Maine rain, and I had to drive really slowly, as if I were in a eternal traffic jam without any cars. When I got to Fourth Avenue, I got stopped by a red light. It was silent, and I waited. It was silent, and I thought. It was silent, and I was silent, and life was silent. I started having little balls of water build up in my eyes while sitting at that stoplight. I wasn’t crying. I don’t know what the name for having water only build up in the eyes, but it's not called crying. They weren’t tears. I knew something had happened on that mountain, and I didn’t know what, but something was different. When the light turned green, I didn’t move forward. I just sat there. Now they were tears. Images danced around my mind: a cigarette, a book, a rucksack, a diploma, a plate, a toy aeroplane. I slowly reached up and cut the ignition to my car despite the honking and the cursing behind me. I was going to
There was an apricot glow coming from the area we had crossed moments before. It was probably that dirty navajo man we passed earlier, I thought. He’s probably burning his trash or making a smoke screen or something, I thought. He’s probably crazy, I thought.
“Hey guys, we have to double time it to base camp. Let’s shoot to leave in two,” said George as he switched his walkie talkie off. We all got off the rocks. Some of us tied our shoes; others drank a little water; I paced around. Once the bowling balls in the back were ready to move, we started down the path. The light behind us was getting closer, and the wind was smacking us with the smell of burning shrubs and plants. I put a scarf over my nose as we entered the boundary of base camp, which was smaller than I expected. George told everyone to go to their tents, and he looked through his binoculars again. “ Something started that fire over there, that’s for sure,” he said, and then he put his binoculars back in his rucksack and went to bed. The fire was getting closer, and planes had started to circle it overhead and there were sirens in the distance, screaming like animals. I sat down on a outcropping near camp and watched the fires dance. I didn’t know what started it, but I got an odd sense of guilt watching the blaze. I felt like I was watching a battle scene of an old war movie on the television back home in Maine, but I could smell the burning, and I could taste the …show more content…
The roads were slick with the Maine rain, and I had to drive really slowly, as if I were in a eternal traffic jam without any cars. When I got to Fourth Avenue, I got stopped by a red light. It was silent, and I waited. It was silent, and I thought. It was silent, and I was silent, and life was silent. I started having little balls of water build up in my eyes while sitting at that stoplight. I wasn’t crying. I don’t know what the name for having water only build up in the eyes, but it's not called crying. They weren’t tears. I knew something had happened on that mountain, and I didn’t know what, but something was different. When the light turned green, I didn’t move forward. I just sat there. Now they were tears. Images danced around my mind: a cigarette, a book, a rucksack, a diploma, a plate, a toy aeroplane. I slowly reached up and cut the ignition to my car despite the honking and the cursing behind me. I was going to