The cliff face taunted Alonso Yemelyan like an impish stone god. Its crumbling crevices caricatured the lines of his own aged face, daring him to climb. He accepted the challenge and mounted a foothold. Mountains may crumble but the fallen pieces reveal the strength of the living rock within. He would ascend and join the clouds charging across the sky.
Alonso's fingers found the first ledge. His muscles loved the work of pulling him up to reach the next handhold. A tumbling shard scattered dust and dirt from above. His golden beard caught stray pebbles.
Party sounds of music and laughter reached him from the cabin and Alonso wondered if anybody had noticed that the quinquagenarian birthday boy was truant. He wouldn't stand any more jokes about being over the hill. He'd accomplished more than all his well-wishers combined, but they treated age like a mere death-clock. He detested the schadenfreude in their jests. Soon they'd come looking for him and find him at the top. No ropes, no chalk.
Now the toughest section, half way up. He wedged himself between two juts, pushing out against them with his left foot and right hand. Then he reached as high as his left arm would extend and grabbed a ledge with two fingers. The muscles that made him heavy also provided the power to perform this feat. Still his muscles trembled as those two digits took his entire weight. A little bit of sweat made his fingers slip, but not enough to lose his grip.
“Dad! What the hell are you doing?”
It was his daughter's voice. From the corner of his eye he saw Lisa emerge from the path, his ex-wife and her new husband close behind. They arrived just in time. Now they would see him conquer this cliff, or die trying.
Everything depended on those two trembling fingers. Alonso pulled himself up, right hand surging to grab the next ledge even as the fingers of his left hand lost their perch. But he reached the ledge, dangled theatrically from his right hand for a single breath, then climbed again. Soon he had stable footing and had transcended the difficult section.
Half of the party had arrived to watch his performance. He smiled at their frowns. This was more than ego. He needed his daughter to see what ambition and risk looked like. She was nearly thirty but he would never stop setting an example.
The ledge beneath his feet suddenly shifted, then fell away completely. His hands grasped wildly for purchase, but they found none. His knee crashed painfully against a sharp outcropping and he knew immediately that it was shattered. The force of the blow sent him tumbling backwards where there was no hope of finding anything to grasp. Just falling through the air like another useless rock. No longer a part of the cliff or its strength. A flake of weakness drifting away, a dead cell.
A few moments of weightlessness allowed him to come to terms with his fate. He hated to leave unfinished work but this would be a good death. His only child would inherit a fortune and she had the sense to use it well. The sound of terrified screams showed him that somebody still cared.
He closed his eyes and waited to meet the broken rubble of jagged stones at the bottom of the cliff.
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