We came down the mountain path between the two peaks, moving further away from town. I carried a heavy rucksack topped with a rolled up sleeping bag; you had a combination sleeping bag and rucksack in a metal frame, something that was more expensive than I could have afforded. I kept stealing glances at it and wondered how it would be to sleep in such a thing.
We were dressed alike, the two of us, which was not too surprising. It was standard hiking clothing for the mountains in this season, summer done but winter yet to come: light jackets and denims, heavy hiking boots over thick nylon socks, and cameras on straps slung round our necks. You had a small woollen cap with a pompom on your head, striped yellow and white. For some reason I still recall that cap; now, when I think of you, I wonder if you still have it. I hope you do. As though it matters anyway, but I hope you do.
We chatted as we walked. It's nice to have company on a hike, especially when it's not someone you're forced to be with, someone whom you chose to walk with and whom you can leave alone if either of you want. It's nice to discover things together on the hike, see places neither of you ever saw before, the colours of the leaves on the trees, the strips of cloud lying in valleys far below, the hawks hanging far overhead on thermals, the glitter of sunlight on a waterfall on a distant hill.
I still recall feeling a bit surprised that we'd only met on the trail and that we were together only because we were going the same way and we were, each of us, hiking alone. I'd started out early because the path was long and the hotel in town wasn't the sort where you'd want to stay any longer than you had to. It wasn't uncomfortable, just pretentious and tastelessly ornate. I'd seen you the night before in the dining room there, so when I saw you on the trail ahead of me I had something to talk about. We laughed about the hotel. Do you remember?
I still recall every bit of that walk, all through the morning. We saw nobody else on the trail, but we saw a lot of other things, and took plenty of photographs. I still have one I took of you, with a great blue dragonfly sitting on that cap of yours. The sun is shining bright and you're smiling, and that dragonfly perches on your cap like a badge. I look at that photo every once in a while, and it makes me happy.
And as we walked we talked of other things too – jobs that constrained us, that left us unhappy, of being trapped in boxy little rooms day in and day out, of waking up in the morning dreading the day, of measuring out leisure in rusty little fragments we coveted so much that when we had them we could only watch, dismayed, as they swept on by. We talked about the strictures of conventions and upbringing and the rest of it, and though we were born and raised far, far away from each other, we found more in common than I would ever have imagined.
By midday we were both a little tired, a little sweaty, a little hungry. By then we had climbed a fair bit of the way up toward the second peak. It hung above our heads, seen clearly through the trees, apparently close enough to touch. Do you remember how the water murmured in the little stream to our right, down below the track? I don't know if it was you who suggested we take a break at the stream, or I, or whether the thought occurred to both of us at once; but we went down to the stream, sliding and slipping a little through the grass, and we arrived laughing and breathless there. The water was as clear as air – we could even see tiny fishes among the rocks, which darted away as our shadows fell on the water.
"Poor fishes," you said. "They must be terrified of us. We must seem like monsters to them."
"We aren't going to harm them," I said, taking off my rucksack with a sigh. "We'll just sit here a while and then go our way."
"True," you said, smiling. "But the fishes don't know that." It was always that part of you I loved then and I love now, most of all – your instinctive love of animals, even the smallest, most insignificant. "I wish there was some way we could let them know." You unlaced your heavy boots and eased them off, and the socks, and rubbed your feet on the grass. "Oh, that feels good."
"Do you hike very often?" I asked, watching your hands as they rubbed and kneaded your legs.
"Not enough." You grimaced slightly. "I'm going to be stiff tomorrow. Stiff."
"I could massage that stiffness out," I said. "I'm good at massage." It's true. I was never any good at sports, but I was masseur for my college sports team. I can take a tense muscle, hard with knots, and leave it soft and relaxed and painless. I don't boast; it's just a skill. I don't even enjoy doing it.
