A friend takes me up into the mountains tonight, up over a path of fat stones that belong at the bottom of a riverbed. But the fat stones are up here because some ancient people thought it worth the backbreaking labor so this trek, through the hills to neighboring valleys and villages, a trek for hauling baskets of cloth, of produce, and of livestock, what must have been the lifeline for these people, be set in stone. Now we walk on their fat stones for exercise.
My friend’s voice stretches and condenses with the opening and closing of trees and clearings as we walk. The fat stones are fat blank nothings except for the occasional sheen where the trees are thin. I wear the wrong shoes for walking on fat blank nothings. My shoes are cloth. But it is one of those moments where you feel lucky that, whatever happens, you can always buy another pair of shoes. The shoes of the ancient redactors-of-the-riverbed were probably cloth too.
We build a fire where the fat stones end. My friend feeds me grilled haloumi and eggplant. I am struck by how something as simple as watching a fire and sitting in silence next to someone you care about can feel so nice, so weightless. A moment to take in the senses. My friend has a particular smell, nothing shameful, just their smell. It hovers over the mix of wet and dry wood on the fire. I realize that everyone I care about has a smell. I list the smells in my head. This smell now is that of a friend who does everything with consideration and intention. A friend whom you enjoy listening to the way they explain the way they do things. It makes you feel snug, as if everything in the world can be orderly and just right if only the friend were there to explain it all. Not every friend is like that. And the fire is managed with such intent. When the friend kneels to blow on the embers, they blow so hard that wind comes out the other end.