Tranquillity part one
الهدوء والطمأنينة
الجزء الأول
I see the summit above me — bare solid rock.
Long golden bunchgrasses point the way, bending upwards in the strong winds, which rumble inside my ears.
The final way up the slope is steep. The path disappeared within the scree long ago. Every step sinks deep into the loose fragments of broken rocks, pebbles and gravel—sending small stone avalanches rattling down behind me.
The sharp click-clacks of the tumbling stones echo in the thin air—reverberating on the surrounding slopes—when another strange echoing noise stops my heavy legs dead in their tracks.
I turn around and gaze across the peaks surrounding me and the deep valleys below me—squinting my eyes in the bright sunlight. Tshuuw, tshuuw—like tension moving through a steel cable—the strange echo grows louder and louder as a shimmering shadow swiftly moves between the mountains. Like an undulating wave, it makes its way from peak to peak. Growing larger. Louder. Heading my way.
I am almost at the summit when it engulfs me—a massive flock of pitch-black birds swirls around me as a singular organic cloud. Crowing loudly in unison, tshuuw, tshuuw. These alpine choughs—crow-like birds that live high up in the mountains—are returning from their daily gorge on the fruits and nuts in the lush valleys below.
They darken the sky in true pointillist fashion, before disappearing behind the mountain—their loud caws dissolving with them…