Voices in the Forest

"Shut up!" I sounded as childish as I felt, whimpering my way up the root-veined, stony slope. Maine could be as cruel as she was stunning. The words had began as a murmur in my mind's eye, but what'd escaped through a leak in my composure was now a whip crack, sharp as the day they were said. 

"Fat loser!" 

"Worthless!" 

"Disgusting, greasy freak!" 

"Shut up! Just shut up!" I screeched twice as loud between heaves of heavy air. I knew it was my own voice projecting from within, not that of the boy who'd kicked my guts to a scrambled mess or the girl who dragged my face across the asphalt. In moments like these, trapped in a true struggle with my own limits so early in my adventure on the Appalachian Trail, I believed the things they said, all those years ago. In moments like these my twisted shadow-self recited verse of hate over and again until it became my new truth. 

"You'll never catch up. You're the very bottom of the barrel," I could hear the voice taunt, as clear as the gym class hero when he lapped me on the timed mile. Just when, between years passed and pounds lost, I thought I'd left this all behind. But that fat never did sit right on my stomach or chest. 

"I'm trying my hardest..." I pleaded aloud, as if through time, to the original offender. I shook my head at my own absurdity and sprayed the highland moss with tears. Suddenly I was guilty at my lack of attention to the visceral, arcane landscape falling ever-so-slowly around me, but I could focus only on one thing. After three weeks heading south on the Trail, that was how much absolutely furious I was to face the possibility that I couldn't do it. Dom had left me behind minutes ago; who knew how far ahead he was now? After everything... after years of punching mirrors, waking up to run with the dawn, and hours spent in the gym, to be brought to my knees by this. 

I let out the scream of a madman. 

"Hey, hey, come sit," any voice other than mine -the torturous or the pleading- was a shock to my system. I sucked down all the gasps on their way up and clamped my lips shut. There was my best friend and hiking partner, one of the only reasons I ever set out to walk so far, sitting at the peak. 

"You... I thought..." I gagged on the words. 

"Just sit," Dom waved me over, "Enjoy the view." Like I had a choice, even in such a condition. Maine's lake country was even more breathtaking than the reemergence of old scars. I'd been so consumed with my rancor, I'd lost track of how high I was climbing. The rage trickled away, waiting for me on lower slopes. Up there, though, where a granite arrowhead pierced the oceanic canopy, nothing so hateful could touch me. 

"Thanks."