Slap, slap, slap.
Feet hit earth behind me like the sound of washing whipping on a line.
“What are you doing?”
“This is maximum stride,” he said as he strode past, legs straddled outward and feet flicking with every metre-wide step disappearing into an ancient tree line below. He was lent far back to maintain balance, almost parallel to the hill, as if he were trying to lie down. His pace quickened with every stride and the faster he got the more his legs flailed and stretched away from him, and the more his arms paced at his sides like the wings of a bird trying to break free from land. Graceful he was not.
Laughing at the bobbing head in front of me speeding down a hill, I said, “You look ridiculous.”
“I’m letting the hill take me, it’s efficient.”
Being taken by a landscape, especially one descending rapidly towards sea level or beyond is a skill that George has practiced over the years and one that I am not so adept with. Whenever we run together and face a decline he passes me, at maximum stride, with minimum effort, and sounding like someone running in flipflops.
“Just let the hill take you,” he always says. But I am not so inclined to trust my limbs to an earth falling away. “It’s much less effort.”
I like to feel the weight of the earth, the pressure of legs pushing against a ground that is no longer constant, no longer stable, no longer there where the natural step falls, a ground at three o’clock slipping to four o’clock, five o’clock.
I fight the urge to follow the pace of land and time slipping, I hold my feet fast feeling my muscles constrict around bone in order to hold me legs steady. As I do so I look left and right. I look at crumbling bark that looks like an artexed ceiling. I look at the straightness of the trees’ arms reaching more sideways than up, as if they’re reaching for a handshake. I look at the subtleties of the bends in some branches and the way the skin wrinkles, creasing at the weight of a branch turning to reach sunlight. The branches are bare, like a collection of large spiders’ legs discarded from the body. The canopy of leaves sits higher. Below it the land is cast in a brown hue from mud and fallen bark, it’s soft underfoot and smells earthy from recent autumnal rains after weeks of thirst. Instead of flowers or grass spattering the brown earth canvas there are angular mounds of chalk in varying sizes and shapes, making the ground look like snow had fallen days ago and all that remains is the bits that were compressed into snowy men or balls.
I breathe in and out, slowly. The hill is steep, perhaps even one o’clock. Out, one, two, three, four. In, one, two, three, four. I can feel my spine beginning to prick with sweat as I fight to keep my breath even. I watch my footing, the ground crumbly in places and firm in others, I aim for the firm land, I know it will hold me converse clad feet. There are foot holds in dug into the hill face, a picture of human bonding with land and creating. They are look concave rock-climbing rocks, and look like small foot-size ledges with grassy heads. They are not well placed so I have to be careful how I tread. I push against the land to hold my legs and body strong. I stop occasionally and turn to check on George, but not for too long otherwise it will ruin my pace.
“Wait for me, you don’t need to go so fast.”
This is where I am faster, going up hills. With each step I push against ground launching my body upwards so that I make the next foothold. It’s warm as if someone has pulled the curtains open on the sun. I wore a green jumper today in preparation for autumn that I felt arrive about a week ago. Sleeping has been cold, the mornings were chill as if frost were soon to be welcomed. I looked up and saw the sheer face of hill rounding off, I used my hands to aid my last few steps, tiny particles of dirt clinging to my fingers and sliding underneath my fingernails. I knew that when I looked at them I would find the whites lined with a dark strip underneath them. I reached the top and bruskly wiped my hands off each other to shed the dirt I had just collected. I turned and took in the view, George still a few paces behind me.
Below me the land fell away into a valley, like a dry fjord, the sides covered in plumes of trees. At the end it opened up into squares of pick and mix land, some were fields, some were forest, and some even further out into the distance were groups of houses. A chapel stood tall and proud, like a heron watching for prey. A wide river meandered through the patchwork plain, a blue gulf to offset the green and grey. It carved its way to the sea that rested in the distance covering the whole horizon, it looked still. I was too far away to know for sure, but it had a sheen from the newly arrived sun that had broken through the small collection of cumulonimbus clouds. All in the distance was clear, it had the piercing clarity that lacks on foggy days. It was like I was seeing things with fresh eyes, and not eyes that have just awoken from a slumber, making things looks murky from them being covered in a layer of sleep. But today, I was fully awake and fully seeing.
“Look at that view.” I said to George as he appeared. “Look turn around and see.”
A noise of awe escaped from his mouth.
Just look how far we can see.