Published in Open Minds Quarterly, 2021
Anxiety ruptures my mind. Thoughts turn to shards of glass, feelings to knives. Threats loom everywhere and with everyone. Night creeps over the daylight. And in the darkness, fear trips me, and I fall.
I spiral.
I fall fast until nothing remains become a dead January field covered in snow. The Arctic. You the Arctic.
On the streets, people can sense it, the fear, draped across my body like an advertisement. I beg these eyes to just let me pass unmolested; only a few more steps, and I promise to never ever think I could do anything ever again. I promise to stay huddled in the corner of my bedroom, alone in the dark, and to stay quiet. I will become a dead January field covered in snow. The Arctic. I will become the Arctic for you. Just please make it stop. Not a word will pass my lips, I swear, except for the lines I must repeat in turn for sanctuary. Only what they want to hear:
I, Thomas, am useless.
I, Thomas, am worthless.
I, Thomas, am nothing.
In the spiral, all becomes impossible, even the smallest of screams.
On Mt. Kilimanjaro’s mountainside, I spiralled.
*
I walk behind Michael, my guide, and mirror each of his tiny steps. On Kilimanjaro, “pole, pole,” or “slowly, slowly,” is the Swahili mantra all guides instruct their clients to follow, many of whom are Western and accustomed to a life defined by speed and deadlines, myself included. The pace aggravates me, but I do not utter protest. “You won’t get anywhere on Kili fast,” Michael says. I trust his knowledge. I trust him when he tells me that I must eat and drink even when I do not feel hunger or thirst. He says water is the best medicine on the mountain. I believe him.
The first two days we—Michael, the porters, and I—ascend slowly through three of Kilimanjaro’s five climatic zones: cultivation, forest, and heather-moorland. The last two, alpine desert and summit, come later, higher, where there is little oxygen and even less life. The cypress forest is cool and refreshing. It awakens me. The fog is atmospheric but not foreboding. It is playful like the cinematography of early Tim Burton films. Michael motions to a black-and-white monkey hanging from a branch. “Sometimes Buffalo pass through the forest as well,” Michael says. “Sometimes you will also hear wild cats at night, though they are rare.” At Simba camp, a buffalo skull is nailed to a hut. At night, the fog lifts, and there are a thousand stars.
The morning feels wonderfully fresh, invigorating, a cold shower. We hike through shrub land. The breeze is slight, the sun glorious. Michael’s pace is slow and methodological, as usual. I follow in good step. The five porters rush, almost run, past us carrying all our gear—the tents, food, and cooking supplies—on their back and head. I see sweat glistening on their necks and suddenly do not feel so shameful of my own sweat appearing in lines across my forehead, even though, of course, they carry 15kg on their person, and I carry less than one. The vegetation becomes sparser, hardier. Nothing is easy at this elevation, over three thousand metres. The clouds in the distance appear as snow drifts and banks. Darker, greyer ones roll down from Kimbo, the second-highest peak on Kilimanjaro.
At camp, the porters have already pitched the tents and have already started gathering water from a nearby stream and boiling it in preparation for lunch. Michael shakes my hand, congratulates me on a good hike, and joins his co-workers by their two tents—three men a piece—and I am left to lounge in my own. Michael and his colleagues talk and laugh between the tents.
James, the waiter, enters my tent and lays a sheet at my feet. In a flash, he has assembled a box of tea bags, jars of instant coffee and hot chocolate, powdered milk, jam, milo, honey, and a thermos of hot water. I make myself a tea, and James has returned with a plate of sliced apples and then a pot of rice and then a pot of curried vegetables. “Asante,” I whisper, chewing on a piece of apple. “Karibu,” James replies, kneeling in front of me. “Eat,” he says, reminding of Kilimanjaro’s cardinal rule: Eat even when you don’t feel like it.
The next days, the trees become fewer and fewer, shrinking into shrubs and brush. The landscape transforms into a moon-like expanse, both savage and incredible. It is lunar. Alien. Kibo Peak looms above us sprinkled with snow and warns us about the remaining work. We are utterly alone. Here, on the Rongai route, other trekkers are mercifully few. Behind Michael’s step, the solitude stitches itself along my skin, as if healing scars I never knew I had. Silence neither scolds nor judges. Its incomplete indifference is liberating, spellbinding. The mountains do not care, and the rocks care even less. To my left, Mawenzi peak, and its spikey series of smaller peaks, comes into perfect view. Michael says the six kilometre expanse of nothingness between Mawnzi and Kilimanjaro is called the saddle. Michael says five years ago, a guide took a Western climber to Mawenzi’s top but then could not descend and had to be rescued by helicopter. I think of the arrogance of that and then the shame. I am glad it was not me.
At Kibo base camp, the solitude of the previous days dissolves into a cacophony of voices. It has the air of a frontier town, the last sanctuary of relative comfort before the danger of the unknown. But instead of gunslingers manning the streets, porters roam about. They rest on rocks and soak in the sun; others play checkers; others simply stand and chat. Backpacks of varying sizes and colours lay scattered on the ground. Michael points to the start of the summit route and a wooden sign:
Dear Esteemed Climbers. Please Read! Do not push yourself to higher altitudes if you have breathing problems, persistent headache or any severe mountain sickness symptoms. We all love the mountain. Let us make climbing safe by considering DESCENDING as a better option.
“Tomorrow morning, we go up,” Michael says.
*
A throb has settled over my forehead and beats in a ruthlessly persistent fashion. My breath has become more laboured and unnatural. At 4,700 metres, oxygen is scare, and everything is a little more taxing.
“Headaches are normal,” Michael reassures me. “Take a Tylenol and rest. You need to acclimatize.”
My body rests, but my mind wanders. Across from our campsite, a group of eight trekkers celebrate their successful summit of Uhuru Peak, standing at 5,900 metres and still a five-hour trek away. Thirty porters and guides surround them in quiet reverence as a white man speaks.
“We would like to thank you. The last five days have been spectacular. Without your support, help, and guidance, we would never have accomplished what for us had been a lifetime goal—to summit Kilimanjaro.”
A porter balancing a bucket full of water on his head struggles past them.
“Without you,” the white man continues, “we would never have reached there.” He points to a glacier fastened to the mountainside, right near the top, the point at which the eye cannot see past. It feels a million kilometres away. “We did it because of you. So, thank you, thank you, thank you.” With that, the group claps and then the guides clap and then the porters clap. Soon, the porters break into a tradition song, and the tourists begin to dance in the shadow of Kilimanjaro’s summit.
Doubt has taken hold of me like an infection. It spreads fast. As the afternoon progresses into evening, I walk through the camp and reread those lines on the sign, and I like the permission it grants to stop. I like the ready-made excuses it provides. If only I had given myself another day or two on the mountain I tell myself. If only I had better anticipated how my body would react to this altitude. Of course, it’s difficult to predict how altitude will affect someone’s body, I would tell my friends when they ask, as even the fittest people in the world succumb to its effect. They would appear satisfied with my explanation and say, No, you are not to blame. You have nothing to feel ashamed about.
At dinner, in my tent, the rice and vegetables look heavy and dense. Each forkful weighs a tonne, and each swallow requires the strength of my entire body. The carrots and potatoes sink into my stomach and land with a thud.
Michael enters.
“Not as hungry tonight?”
I shake my head.
“Still have the headache”?
I nod.
“And trouble breathing?”
“A little.”
He takes my finger and straps it his oxygen reader. I want his eyes to explode with concern. I want him to gasp in fear and demand we ascend to a lower altitude. Instead, he just nods in apparent satisfaction.
“What time do you want to get up tomorrow?”
“Maybe around five.”
Michael ignores my pleading eyes.
“I think four is best.”
A silence erupts between us.
“I don’t want to do anything I am uncomfortable with.”
“And you won’t. We’ll see how you feel in the morning. But for now, you need to rest.”
Michael wishes me a good night and disappears.
Alone in my tent, the voice comes.
Thomas,
What is the problem? Seriously, look at you, lying there, on the verge of tears, just begging for permission to fail, actually hoping to become sicker just so you have an excuse. Who does that? I see you running through the plausible excuses in your mind trying to find a socially acceptable rational for failure, to provide a veneer of acceptability to what is in reality utter spinelessness. I see you, Thomas. I know you better than anyone. You want to leave tomorrow. Escape. But you forget, dear Thomas, the real problem with that solution. Yes, them. What about them? Those eyes you will meet on your retreat, those trekkers walking towards the mountain while you are fleeing it, tail between your legs, a fucking scared little bitch, and they thinking, “Wow, he did it. He made it to the top.” But you will know the truth, no, you didn’t do it, and you will have to endure that shame for the rest of your life, the grown man who turned away out of fear, the man who transformed into a terrified little boy on the mountainside, into a scared little thing. Fuck you. I hope each one asks you on your descent “How wonderful was the summit?” And when that happens, Thomas, rest assured I’ll be watching you. What will you say? Oh, I can’t wait, Thomas, to see that discomfort on your face. Look at your face! Will you lie? Will you fucking lie? Oh my god, Thomas. It’s fucking priceless. Look at you standing there not knowing what to say. Well, you can tell me, Thomas. There are no secrets between us. How was it? Tell me Thomas? How was it atop Kilimanjaro?
I close my eyes and inhale.
Thomas,
You are hilarious. You want help? You promise to get help this time? Right! Sure! We have heard that guarantee before, haven’t we? Yes, I know what you’ll say. I will go into therapy. I will dedicate the necessary time and resources and effort to finally manage it better. No more dithering about. No more second guessing. I will do it this time. I will get it under control. This time, I will. And then I’ll return to Kilimanjaro and do it properly. Do it with the fortitude and mental resolve required. I will. I will. I will. YOU ARE FUCKING HILARIOUS, Jesse. Return to Kilimanjaro? You are literally sleeping at base camp. You are literally five hours away from the top. And you want to return to finish those hours after doing an intensive therapy session? You are special one, Thomas. Do you know how many people would kill to be in your position? Do you understand the privilege of being here? You won the fucking lottery, and you want to go talk about it with some therapist? Oh dear doctor, please help me. I can’t cope with all these extraordinary things I get to do. I simply cannot deal with climbing mountains and travelling the world. Oh, please, doctor, cure me of my fucking privilege, cure me of my opportunities, my experiences. Cure me! Cure me! Cure me! Blah, Blah, Blah, Thomas. Blah, fucking, blah. Fuck your verbal masturbation. Fuck your attempts to assuage your own cowardice. Fuck your attempts to disguise what a privileged little shit you are by blaming me. Fuck you, Thomas. You do not get to blame me. Fuck your blame. I am not to blame. You are. It’s your fault. Yours. No one else’s. Own it. Say it. “It’s my fault.” Fucking say it Thomas.
I exhale and then say it.
Thomas,
I am not going anywhere. I am here to stay. I own you. You are mine. No amount of therapy will ever relieve you of me. I am as sacred to you as your heart, your blood, your soul. Wherever you go, there I am, waiting and waiting and waiting. Kilimanjaro or no Kilimanjaro, it doesn’t matter to me. I will be there to defend you. I will be there to protect you. I keep you safe and secure. I keep you warm. I keep you fed. I keep you sheltered. Without me, you are just a little piece of meat in the world. Look at the wolves, Thomas. Look at them circling you, always circling you. We are a world of wolves. And without me, how their teeth would sink into your belly. Feel it, Thomas. Feel those teeth in your belly and tell me how fucking essential I am.
Tell me.
Tell me.
Tell me.
*
The following day, in the early afternoon, I am walking the saddle. Michael and I are alone in this alpine desert. Light clouds dance over Mawenzi, until they separate, and the sun peaks through; the breeze is slight. Our footsteps provide the only sounds. We walk at a good pace; another eight or kilometres remain before tonight’s campsite. No more “pole, pole.” We are descending. My headache is gone. I breathe just fine.
Kilimanjaro rises behind me.
Michael waits as I take a photo of the light pouring over Mawenzi. The light is soft; the scene exposes itself perfectly. The colours are sharp, varied—a million shades of brown, blue, and white. I merely point my camera and shoot and capture this image forever. And I wonder, for just a brief second, what I may think about when I gaze at this photo in a year’s time. But I do not rest on the thought for long. Michael has walked on, and my legs are itching to follow.