Soul Mountain

A short story by Sarah Burt Howell

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On the first morning of their journey, when the air was still fresh and bright, Joy spotted the telltale dust cloud of someone running down the mountain. 

She pointed about a mile up the trail, for Ethan’s sake. “Look. It’s a failed soul.” 

Ethan rolled his eyes. This was the first annoying thing he had ever done. According to Joy. 

She tugged on his backpack. “Hold up. I want to see.”  

Ethan walked the wrong way off the trail, though, into a boulder field. He jumped with his long legs over impossible gaps, climbing a pile of granite rocks as easy as stairs. “I can see fine from here!” 

“I want to get closer,” she shouted up at him.

“He’s not stopping to chat!”  

“Just promise you’ll wait!” Joy needed to cross the trail, but the ground was so flat here, the pilgrims surged by like fans entering a stadium. Everyone was talking loudly, and they all looked too important to interrupt. Joy jumped back to make way for a gang of soldiers in combat gear, hustling up the outside. Some pilots walked by, laughing with their flight attendants in their fancy cravats. Not a single person was dressed sensibly for hiking, but Joy felt awash with a tribal sense of relief when a group of women hikers approached in pleated golfing skirts and hooped gold earrings like her grandmother. 

From the way that these ladies returned her smile, Joy knew they would let her across. So she said, “excuse me” while stepping into their midst—and unseen hands shoved her backpack from behind—she stumbled, caught a sharp elbow in the face, and tripped into a sea of spiked golf shoes. The pilgrims pushing from behind, though, kept her mostly upright while they swept her up uphill like some horrible, chattering, riptide. 

Joy kicked at the espadrilles and golf shoes until her sneakers found traction, then she pushed and swore her way through the crowd to the other side of the trail.

After that small ordeal, Joy kicked at the knee-high grass and daisies between the uphill and downhill trails, still swearing quietly. Then she crossed the vacant downhill path and found a spot where she could make good eye contact with the runner. She wanted to convey with her glance that, Yes they had made a shameful choice, and no, she couldn't speak of it, but she grieved for them. She hoped to say with her eyes that she might never understand their misfortune, but she cared. The rumor was you got removed from the mountain for speaking to a returning pilgrim, but Joy didn’t see the harm in showing some compassion.

And then in a burst of dust and pebbles, the runner was upon her. Joy tried to make eye contact, but he tore past as if she didn’t exist. He was young—maybe Joy and Ethan’s age—high school or college, and he sprinted by so furiously in his green track suit that pebbles flew out from beneath his sneakers. Joy was close enough to see the wild, abandoned whites of his eyes, and hear him gasp for breath in a way that could have been a laugh. His face had that look. He ran by so fast, it was hard to know what to think.

Joy glanced up to check that Ethan was still on the giant rock pile across the trail. He was currently broadcasting his lack of interest by leaning back and drinking a can of water. Then he used his palms to press the empty can into a disk that he slipped into his backpack. 

The rule on the mountain was: pack it in, pack it out. The pilgrims each started their journey with backpacks full of cash and food. At the end of the trail, they all walked into a cave carrying backpacks crammed full of crushed aluminum cans. No one brought tents. Everyone slept under the sky. 

Joy knew all the traditions of Soul Mountain, but she had never heard anything of substance about what happened up top at the caves, and it was said that those few who returned from above always ran by in silence. Yet the mountain was awash with rumors, like waves in the sea. No one knew where waves came from, but the ocean didn’t run out of them, did it? 

For example, the pilgrims didn’t need maps. Joy and Ethan had been learning everything about the trail from their fellow travelers, and lately, people had been warning of a steep section, with no shade for the next six to eight hours of hiking.      

Joy continued watching the failed soul run down the mountain trail until she lost sight of his speck. It was hard to believe that she and Ethan could have travelled so far in one morning. Then she looked up at the nearby rocks again to make sure Ethan hadn’t left. He was stretched out on the boulder, his face towards the sun. 

On the way back to him, Joy didn’t try to cross the crowded path. She simply trotted uphill long enough to navigate diagonally across the flow of hikers. 

Then she wandered back downhill through the boulder field, wandering among pilgrims who sat gossiping and eating as if the granite rocks were benches and cafe tables. She listened for talk about the running man, but only overheard people buying and selling food: a hard-boiled egg sold for $70. A pint can of water for $140. A pilgrim offered her blackened banana for $45, and three men offered cash. Someone held up four-thousand dollars, asking for a cigarette lighter. 

When Joy finally climbed up onto Ethan’s big pile of rocks, she said, “Blessed be you.” Ethan’s face looked pink, so she sat down next to him in a way that blocked the sun from hitting his face. 

“Blessed be you,” said Ethan, not opening his eyes. “What did you think of the runner?”   

“He looked relieved,” she said.

“I wonder how far up the mountain he got before he ran. If he saw the caves.”

Joy hugged her knees. Everybody knew they were walking towards two caves at the end of the trail. Everyone knew them as the cave of total annihilation and the cave of infinite potential. Everyone seemed to believe that when you walked into one, you ceased to exist. When you walked into the other, you achieved anything that you could imagine: be your best self, fuse with God and heaven, reunite with your loved ones. Anything was possible if you chose the correct cave. But, of course, no one knew which cave was which.

Everyone says you’ll know the right cave when you see it. Or you can meditate at the top, wait until your food and money run out, and then take a guess. Joy shivered, despite the heat. She never felt so sharply alive as when she considered the finer points of her possible annihilation. 

Another option was to run back down the mountain, but Joy had heard pilgrims say that runners forfeited their place in the world because after they died they’d be reborn as a frog, and it took countless lifetimes for a frog to become a human again. And only humans could be pilgrims on Soul Mountain. 

Ethan massaged his feet, but carefully, like there were blisters under his wool socks. “Everything will turn out okay when we get to the caves. I can feel it.” 

“I honestly wish I had your faith,” said Joy. “I’d even settle for faith in your faith, so I could confidently follow you into the correct cave.”

Ethan slid an orange fishing boot back onto his socked foot. He winced, and fake-yawned to hide the wince. His rubber boots were clearly not made for hiking.

Joy touched his arm. She rarely touched him, so she definitely noticed him noticing her, noticing him, noticing her, touching him. “It’s too hot to walk,” she said. “Let’s wait for sunset.” 

Ethan pulled off his orange boot again and wiggled his toes, still noticing her.

“How are you so calm?” she said. “My heart is racing.”

He rifled through his backpack and handed her a can of water. "You’re just dehydrated.”

Joy drank and wiggled her toes. 

Ethan said, “And you haven’t been eating. Here.” He handed her a sandwich, then laid back down on the warm, smooth granite and closed his eyes. 

Joy deconstructed the sandwich, first eating the bread, then the pickled vegetables. She nibbled at the end of a piece of roasted chicken, but its taste flooded her with memories of her mother in the kitchen, and the memories pulled hard, as if she could go home. She put a piece of chicken back into the sandwich baggie.

Then she scooted to the edge of the boulder and looked down onto a preponderance of white hair and bald, sunburned heads. She held up the ziplock bag. “Blessed travelers! How much for my frog-meat jerky!?” 

In the most satisfying moment of her day, Joy watched the whole river of pilgrims slow, as dozens of heads turned towards her. Nearby pilgrims smacked into the backpacks of the hikers in front of them and the whole line rippled as far back as Joy could see.

Four elderly hikers peeled off from the trail and clambered across the rocks towards her. 

“I’ll take that!” 

“Hello! Me!”

“I’ll give you seven hundred and fifty dollars!”

Joy sold the baggie to the first pilgrim to reach her with a handful of cash, a man wearing a fishing vest.

He sniffed the meat, then greedily bit into it. “Tastes like chicken!” He smiled and thanked Joy. “Blessed are you,” he called to her, rejoining the passing stream of hikers. 

“Maybe I’ll see you farther up the mountain,” she said to the others.

Joy lay down in the sun beside Ethan. She tried to calm herself by matching her breath to his, and then she was asleep.

Hours later, when Ethan woke her, Joy said she could happily stay on that boulder selling fake frog jerky until their backpacks were empty of sandwiches and filled with cash. 

Ethan knelt and tied the laces on her tennis shoes. “It’s a gift to walk the path.” He tugged tight on a double-knot and smiled at her.

Before this trip up the mountain, she’d only spent time with Ethan in their tiny carpool. Just the two of them this year, with his mother driving them in the morning, and hers picking them up after school. 

So it was a surprise to be here with him now. Joy had always vaguely imagined herself hiking up Soul Mountain as an older woman. And here she was, making this trip even before her parents. It was an honor to be a pilgrim, but the mountain unnerved her, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was here too early. 

They stood and hoisted their backpacks on. Ethan said that his blister felt better and the cool evening shadows made him want to walk all night long. People had told him it was never too dark to see on the mountain. The higher you climbed, the more stars illuminated the path. 

That evening, Joy discovered that there was no rational limit to what the blessed pilgrims would pay for a small bag of frog jerky. The higher they climbed, the bolder she grew in her pricing. 

When a pinkish dawn crept up the side of the mountain, Ethan stopped to pee behind a rocky outcropping. Joy jumped onto a log by the side of the trail and shouted, “Fifteen hundred dollars for my bag of dried meat!” 

A silver-haired person in blue body tights yelled, “Are you the young lady selling frogs’ legs? I’ll take it!” 

“Blessed be you,” Joy said, accepting their money. 

“Blessed be you.” The blue yogi walked away, nibbling their jerky.  

A much younger woman about Joy’s own age had stopped to watch this sale. She wore a pretty floral shirt and cargo pants and carried a small pink backpack. The way she faced Joy, the morning sun reflected off the yellow brim of her sunhat like a flower. She stared as Joy self-consciously tucked the folded bills into her backpack. 

“I only had one bag to sell.” 

“You only had one bag down where you asked eleven hundred. I bet they’d pay four thousand at the top.”

“You want to buy some?”

“I don’t eat frog. I’m probably going to end up one.”

Joy laughed. “It’s chicken, anyway.”

“Brilliant. I’m carrying chocolate. Want a piece?”

“What is it, like a thousand dollars a square?” Joy marveled at how this no longer seemed like a lot of money. 

“Two thousand is what I’ve been selling it for. But I’d trade for a can of water.”

Joy unzipped her side pocket and brought out a can.

The young woman shook her head. “Save it for later.” She broke off a generous square of chocolate and handed it over. “My name is Mary.”

Joy nibbled appreciatively at a corner, then gave the rest of the chocolate square to Ethan when he returned from his pee. 

He was ecstatic. “How much did you pay for this? No, don’t tell me. I don’t care.”

“Mary gave it to us.”

Ethan nodded, in chocolate bliss. “Blessed be you.”

“Blessed be you,” Mary replied.

Joy opened a can of water, and after they’d washed down the chocolate, all three rejoined the parade of tired pilgrims, walking side-by-side up the wide mountain trail. 

As predicted, the path grew increasingly steep. The long line of pilgrims slowed, and became eerily quiet, now that everyone was breathing too heavily to speak. Only Mary’s backpack was so small and empty that she kept chatting. 

“What freaks me out,” she said, “is we’re all headed to the same caves. We’re all on this path that leads to either our total annihilation or the fulfillment of our dreams. And nobody’s talking about it. They all sit in the sun on those boulders and swap rumors about the price of food near the top, and whether it makes more sense to carry water or bring cash to buy it. How come everyone’s not terrified? I’m terrified. Before I met you, I was spending half my time peeing behind the rocks. That’s how scared I’ve been. You cheered me up with that frog legs jerky. You’re too funny.”

At this, Ethan grabbed Joy’s backpack and swung her to the side of the trail. “It’s not funny. Why are you selling fake frogs’ legs?” 

Joy was still gasping for breath, so Mary answered. “Don’t you think it’s funny that people want to eat their worst fears? It’s barbarically brilliant.”

“You’re lying to people,” said Ethan.

“Big deal,” said Joy, without matching Mary’s playful tone. “Anyone who legit thinks they’re eating the reincarnated souls of fellow travelers has bigger problems than whether I’m selling chicken or frog.” 

“No one said the mountain is full of saints,” said Ethan, shrugging it off. 

The three started walking again, and Ethan began to hum. 

“How can you be so calm?” Mary asked him. “Your whole eternity will depend on which cave you walk into today.”

“I have faith.”

“Is faith supposed to be this terrifying? I’m just amazed that when people get to the end of the path, they’ll walk into one cave or another without trying to figure anything out. Nobody puts their ear to the ground, pulls out a flashlight, or tries to peek into the voids. They just pick a cave and stroll in. Like it’s a coffeeshop.”

This time, Joy grabbed Mary’s little pink backpack and pulled her off the path. “How do you know that?” 

“Have you been to the top?” Ethan asked.

“Full disclosure, yes,” said Mary. “I walked up with my family earlier this week. My mother was a woman of great faith. The plan was to follow her into a cave.”

“Which one did she pick?” asked Joy.

“My mom stood at the entrances for a long time, praying and listening to God, watching people walk into one cave or the other. She told us not to judge the caves by the people who walked into them. She said her Lord would tell her what to do.”

“Amen.”

“Which one?” asked Joy.

“She was taking so long, I’ve never been so scared. My family was holding hands and singing verses. I thought I could duck behind a rock to relieve myself. I could hear them singing when I walked away.”

“Didn’t you tell them to wait?” 

Mary shrugged and wiped tears from her face with a sleeve. “I guess.”

Ethan and Joy ushered her farther away from the flow of pilgrims to where they could sit quietly. Ethan whispered, “What happened?”

Mary said, “I walked behind the rocks, where it smelled like puke and shit, and I heard them singing—until I didn’t. They were gone when I got back. I asked a Buddhist monk sitting on a log near the entrances what he’d seen, because he looked so aware. But the monk couldn’t say which cave a singing family of six had walked into. No one could.”

“You lost your family.” Joy squeezed Mary's shoulder.  

“I was so sad that I almost walked into the nearest cave, risking annihilation. But I couldn't do it. If I get annihilated, I won’t even know. That doesn't seem right.”

The trio stared for a moment at the crowd of pilgrims walking past, all of them now bent forward under the weight of their backpacks. A shirtless man with a hairy belly-button followed a girl in a ponytail and an orange hunting jacket, and a tall woman in a green satin robe. Joy caught glimpses of a tweed jacket, a construction hat, and all manner of pajamas. A thin, wrinkled man strolled by naked (except for his fanny pack), and it wasn’t even weird. 

Mary leaned against the granite boulder and asked, “Do you remember the precise moment it occurred to you to climb this mountain?” 

Joy and Ethan glanced at each other and nodded. Their elbows were touching.

Mary leaned in. “After I lost my family, I sat on a rock and asked people when they’d decided to make this pilgrimage. Some of the older pilgrims said they’d been overwhelmed by the urge while falling asleep. One man was going over a waterfall in a kayak. One woman was shooting heroin. But they all remembered feeling suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to walk up this mountain.” 

Joy nodded. “Me too.”

Ethan looked at Joy. “I remember the exact moment I had that feeling. You and I were carpooling to school. My mom was driving away from your house when I heard a loud noise that made me look at you and think this pilgrimage was something I should do. It became the only thing that mattered. Go figure.”

Joy blinked a few times. She scrunched her face and said, “I remember seeing Ethan’s mom drive through a red light. I looked out Ethan’s window and saw the chrome grill of a huge black pickup truck.” 

“Then what happened?” said Mary.

“I screamed.”

“And?”

“I remember looking into Ethan’s eyes and thinking, I’m going to climb Soul Mountain with that boy.”

The three sat quietly until Ethan asked Mary, “What was it like for you?”

Mary leaned back against the boulder again and pursed her lips. “My sister had just left her boyfriend and moved back in with our family. Bad breakup and all. We were watching football on TV. My sister, her baby, my twin brothers, me, and my parents, when her ex kicked in the kitchen door, and before we could pause the remote, starts shooting. I screamed and thought, Holy shit, I’m about to climb Soul Mountain with my whole friggin’ family now.”

“It’s too bad the monk couldn’t tell you which cave they went into.” Ethan opened a water can and passed it to Mary.  “But what’s a monk doing on Soul Mountain?” 

“You think the Buddhists should have their own mountain?” said Joy.

Ethan shrugged, passing her a can of water.

What did the monk say about the cave of annihilation?” said Joy.

“He said the annihilation of self is the doorway to nibbana.” Mary answered, still drying her tears.

Ethan rolled his eyes. “What the fuck is nibbana?”

“It’s the Pali word for nirvana, and the monk says he uses the Pali word because everyone thinks they understand nirvana, but no one makes that mistake with nibbana.”

“What about the cave of infinite potential?” said Joy. 

“He claims there’s infinite potential in the hard reset of emptiness, at rebirth.”

“He’s got the caves backwards,” said Ethan. “Emptiness is annihilation.”

“No.” Mary closed her eyes. “He said to think of emptiness as a way of looking at experience that doesn't add or take anything away. Emptiness is the raw data of sensory input before it’s filtered by the likes, dislikes, opinions, and perceptions of ‘me.’ When you were born, you were empty of self, empty of these filters. You arrived in a state of emptiness, then collected your filters through experiencing your life. The monk said that at rebirth, these filters will all be stripped away again in a hard reset, back into emptiness, in the cave of infinite potential.” She shook her head. “Obviously, after I talked to him, I hit a whole new level of anxiety, because even if I guess correctly about which cave is which, I might be wrong about what happens inside.” Mary noticed the stricken look on Ethan's face. "But don’t worry. Nobody knows.” 

Ethan looked afraid for the first time since they’d arrived on the mountain. “What if everything I’ve been told is wrong? What if this whole thing is about rebirth?” 

Joy touched his arm. “Don’t worry. If you’re reborn today, I’m sure all your good deeds from this lifetime will be waiting to greet you.”

Ethan took a deep breath. Joy drew her hand away.

“How much farther now?” he asked Mary.

“Pretty close,” she said. “Ten minutes after this next bend.”

“Blessed are we to be pilgrims,” Ethan said, as if trying to convince them. 

Joy said, “Can’t we just climb up onto this boulder and sit in the sun one last time?”

So they scrambled up onto the enormous flat top of the rock they’d been leaning against. Ethan meditated on his back while Joy sold the last of their dried meat to passing travelers. 

She told Mary, “I just got five thousand dollars for a few bites of chicken. My backpack is so full of cash, it’s heavier than Ethan’s, and he’s carrying our water cans. I can’t spend all this money. I don’t even know why I’m selling this stuff now.”

Mary nibbled at chocolate. “Isn’t the real question, why are you hiking up this mountain?”

Joy glanced over to make sure that Ethan wasn’t listening. Then she whispered to Mary, “Yesterday morning when Ethan’s mom drove into my driveway to pick me up, there was this massive puddle outside the car door because I was supposed to clear the leaves out of the drain last week. Ethan saw that I was about to soak my sneakers, so he slid over. He rolled down the window and he told me to get in the other side. Ordinarily, I’m sitting on the side of the car that got hit.”

Mary handed her a square of chocolate.

Joy continued, “I keep seeing this image in my mind of the pickup truck’s chrome bumper coming in through Ethan’s open window and hitting him in the back of the head.” She touched the back of her own head gingerly. “The airbags inflated between us. I wasn’t hurt much. But the only reason Ethan is hiking up Soul Mountain is because he was being nice to me. Of course I’m coming with him.”

Ethan rolled over and opened his eyes as if he’d heard his name. The three of them exchanged a look of overwhelm. He said, “I guess this is it.”

Ethan stood and stretched. They snacked on chocolate and water and then rejoined the moving queue. This close to the top, the pilgrims walked with their necks craned, whispering. 

And then after one final bend in the trail, they could see the two, smallish, dark, cave openings. Joy felt a cold shiver along her spine. Pilgrims sat on boulders on both sides of the trail now, praying with open mouths, their attention fixed on the people entering the shadowed caverns. 

The last few moments of walking flew by in a focused hush. Even Mary had nothing to say. 

After traveling so far, Joy felt unprepared when they finally reached the cave entrances. She was surprised by how calm and ordinary the moment felt. A few dozen people hung back and appeared to be seriously considering their choice, but most pilgrims barely paused before walking into a cave. 

Ethan stopped and rubbed his chin with his hand, seeming confused. Joy and Mary waited with him while the pilgrims walked around them. Travelers favored the left cave at first, then more people went right, then it was split fifty-fifty, then they went left again. 

“I thought everyone would choose the same cave,” Joy said.

“I thought it would be more obvious,” admitted Ethan.

Joy wiggled her toes and looked at the blue sky one last time. She kicked the brown dust, and considered the boulders, the green rolling hills. It all called to her, and she didn't know how to say goodbye to the world.

When Ethan finally looked from the caves to Joy, he said, “Blessed be you.” He radiated confidence. “You’re not coming with me.” 

Joy stood on her tiptoes and looked into his eyes. “Blessed be you. I am coming.” 

Ethan put his hands on her shoulders and looked back with unfettered tenderness. He whispered, “Not. Your. Fault.” 

Then Ethan took a step back and addressed both Joy and Mary. “There’s a reason the caves aren’t calling you two. Don’t follow me in.”  

Ethan looked once more into Joy’s eyes as he walked backwards. Then he turned and ran into the cave on the left, disappearing into its dark opening.

“Of course I’m following him,” Joy said.

Mary grabbed Joy’s hand and the two young women walked quickly after Ethan into the cave. 

As they crossed the threshold from daylight into darkness, Joy saw nothing. Everywhere in the cave was blackness, and her heart raced so fast that she felt briefly disoriented. She focused on Mary’s warm hand gripping her own. 

“Ethan! Where are you?” 

With her free arm, Joy searched the air around her and found nothing but Mary and her wide-brimmed hat. 

“I don’t think we’re annihilated,” said Mary.

"Hello!?” Joy shouted. “Anybody?” 

“Let’s keep walking,” said Mary. “Don’t let go of my hand.” 

Mary counted their steps out-loud while they searched the darkness with their free hands. Joy kept looking back at the entrance, to make sure the cave’s large doorway of light was still there. She couldn’t see back out into the world, but she needed to know it was there.  

Mary counted thirty terrifying paces straight back before their hands found the cool, rock wall. Then they carefully felt their way along this wall, from one end of the cave to the other, bruising their fingers, smelling the stale, undisturbed air. They explored like this until Joy understood that there was no passageway hidden in the darkness, and Ethan wasn’t in the cave with them. 

“I can’t say I’m completely disappointed,” she admitted.

Mary said, “You don’t care that we walked up the mountain for nothing?”

“Not for nothing.” Joy gestured with their clasped hands towards the illuminated entrance. They approached it until they could clearly see the pilgrims who were walking towards them and disappearing into the glow. It was like watching Ethan disappear into the darkness, but from the other side. Every expression was in full bloom, as if the pilgrims had each been distilled to their one true desire, at the end. 

Beyond the approaching hikers, Joy and Mary could see across the rocky desert to where the rolling green valleys sparkled with cities, far below Soul Mountain. 

“Looks like it’s the same messed-up world we came from,” said Mary.

“And also, technically speaking, welcome back to the realm of infinite potential,” said Joy. 

She adjusted her heavy backpack, then squeezed Mary’s hand. “Come on. I’ll race you down the mountain.”

The End

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(c) 2015 - 2025 Sarah Burt Howell

Author's note: I wrote Soul Mountain as a writing group exercise where our group chose a half dozen “strong” words to include in a story we wrote for the following week. I think that week the words were “sandwich,” “careen,” and I can’t remember what else. After she read it, one of my writing group members told me that she would buy a whole story collection just to have access to this one. I thought that was such a nice thing to say, I decided to put it online for her and others too.