He watched them pass by, completely absorbed in their lives as if no one else existed except them and the other people in their little bubbles. They were the main characters of their own stories, yet had no idea how inconsequential their stories were in the grand scheme of things.
***
He collapsed in his bed after a long day of aimless walking along the streets—no longer delighted by the colorful buildings, vibrant energy, and ruins. Everything got old in the end. He lay on his back and stared up at a brown water stain on the ceiling as he tried to get comfortable. He wondered if the mark on the ceiling was from a leak, and whether he could expect to have water drip down on him in his sleep. As he looked up at the stain, he could start to make out shapes in it, like when he used to find shapes in the clouds as a kid as he laid on the grass. Where the water crept across the ceiling in fingers, it looked like two rabbit ears, and once he saw that, he could make out the feet. Why did humans have to try to find meaning in every little thing? Meaning where there isn’t any. It was probably something to do with survival. Some innate thing you are born with. It was the reason people would find the image of the Virgin Mary burned onto slices of toast. We couldn’t cope with the notion that everything was just chaos. He shifted on the thin mattress and faced the bare wall. He needed to rest up for his trip to the Hierve-el-Agua in the morning.
***
After sleeping for most of the journey, the shared taxi lurched on the bumpy mountain road, jolting Michael awake as his head banged against the window.
“Good afternoon sleepy head.” A British voice greeted him. He wanted to say her name was Amanda but couldn’t quite remember. The last couple of days had been a blur.
“Where are we?” he asked. He would catch a glimpse of mountains in the distance, only for the van to weave the other way, blocking the view as it wound up the steep incline.
“We’re almost there.”
The van struggled upwards, rocking from side to side as its tires traversed the rough ground below, and Michael looked out as the mini-bus kicked up clouds of dust that drifted in through the crack in the window. The hollow feeling of hunger gripped his stomach, and he leaned forward as a wave of nausea peaked. The terrain started to level out, and they reached the parking lot. It was a relief to finally be still, and Michael hurried to get off the bus. He squeezed past the other passengers as they took their time gathering their things. He needed to be out in the non-recycled air.
It was only a short uphill walk from the van. The early afternoon sun caressed one side of his face and a breeze, the other.
The satisfying crunch of loose rocks under his boots accompanied him all the way up the hill. As they reached the crest of the peak, Michael looked down to see shimmering pools below. Natural springs encased in ripples of white, salty rock. The shallower pools looked white where you could see the salt below the water, with one large central pool that was a brilliant pale blue. Light reflected off the perfectly still mirror of water and the glass-like surface seemed to just drop off the edge like an infinity pool, as if he was stood at the end of the world. Above the water, the panorama of dark green, tree-covered mountains in the distance rose and fell like waves. The thing that caught his eye was a lone tree sticking out from behind the turquoise pool, protruding from the rock as if it had broken through. The dark brown, almost black branches stuck up into the air like parched claws reaching for the sky. He drank it in, trying to capture the moment in his head so he could hold on to it for as long as he had left. It didn’t take long before the pool was overrun with people taking selfies. They strategically positioned themselves and gazed into the horizon while getting someone to take that perfect ‘candid’ shot. Michael watched people in the water, dancing and posing. He just lay on the rock like a cold-blooded reptile sunning themselves. The heat radiating from the stone warmed him from below, and the sun toasted him from above.
None of it looked real. It was as if he existed in a postcard, yet at the same time, everything felt heightened. He was finally present in the moment.
Life often tried to trick him like this. Every now and then it would show him something beautiful. It would try to convince him that there was a point to all suffering—a reason that could make working a job you hate, for most of your waking hours, worthwhile. It was a liar, a very good one—well, it fooled most of the population. The moments like this, the moments where life seemed worth living, they were the minority. The majority was work, housework, more work, commuting, coming home to watch the latest tragedy on the news, consuming. Repetition, repetition, repetition all culminating in an inevitable, and probably painful death.
The British girl tapped him on the shoulder. “Michael, are you not going in?”
“Yeah. Soon.” He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the mountains. There was something about mountains. Even though they were just enormous pieces of rock, they somehow signified
