As the year turns, you do not cheer. You exhale. The mountains do not change. They do not know it is 2021. They do not care. And for the first time in twelve months, that indifference does not feel cruel. It feels like a promise.
You chop wood not for a stat boost, but because your fingers will freeze if you don’t. You boil snow for water because the tap has run dry—metaphorically, perhaps, for the whole year. You light a candle in the window of your rented A-frame. Not for anyone to see. Just for the act .
Some things endure. The stone. The cold. The foot of the mountain, where the broken and the tired and the grieving can rest. Foot Of The Mountains 2 - Holidays Special 2020 ends not with a reward, but with a list. The credits roll over a slow pan of the dawn light hitting the peaks. There are no names of famous actors or designers. Instead, the credits read: Foot Of The Mountains 2 -Holidays Special 2020-...
And finally, in small, steady type:
The foot of the mountains belongs to everyone. To be at the foot of the mountains during the holidays of 2020 is to accept a specific kind of geometry. You are neither in the valley of commerce (the malls, the office parties, the frantic gift-wrapping) nor on the dangerous, icy heights of isolation. You are on the slope . The liminal space. The threshold. As the year turns, you do not cheer
In memory of those who did not make it to the foot. For the nurses who climbed every stair. For the children who learned to wave through glass. For the empty chairs at every table.
Press any key to begin again.
Outside, the northern lights bleed green and violet across a sky unspoiled by light pollution. The mountains—those ancient, indifferent titans—catch the aurora on their ridgelines like a benediction. You step onto the porch. Your breath clouds. You realize, with a sharp and unexpected clarity, that you have not been still in a decade.
And yet.
The holidays have been stripped of their spectacle. There is no feast for twelve. There is a single ration bar, a tin of sardines, and a bottle of whiskey that you’ve been saving since March. There is no family drama around a crowded table—only a video call that buffers every thirty seconds, a frozen image of your mother’s face, a wave that is also a goodbye.