I didn’t look upward, but I was going that way. The air was damp. The cold, rough rungs were all I saw, all I dared see. I was afraid, too afraid to tremble—afraid that if I stopped to rest or to look for the walls of the shaft in the darkness, the rungs would crumble loose, their anchors give way.
I climbed for hours. Weary. I kept climbing. I didn’t know why. I couldn’t even remember where I’d started, when I’d started, any time before I’d started. Always climbing, and that was all. All that existed for me was one steel rung, then the next, and the next. Maybe I would see stars again, if I would just keep going. Continue reading