“I will become the first person to reach the summit of this mountain!”
I was filled with excitement.
The wind and snow roared. The rocks were cold and steep. Before me, the cliff was covered in blue ice. High above, sunlight struck the rocky platform at the summit and reflected a golden glow.
That was the place I was determined to conquer.
I set out alone.
My trekking pole drove firmly into the snow. My crampons bit firmly into the snow. And I, too, climbed upward through the snow with stubborn resolve. The wind cut against my face like knives, and cold air rose from beneath my feet, but my will to move forward did not weaken. A dead tree trunk became my shelter from the wind; a great rocky slope became my place of rest.
Then, in the snowstorm, a human figure suddenly appeared.
Had someone already beaten me to it?
My heart sank. Anxious to see the person ahead more clearly, I hurried forward a few steps. The figure seemed to be sitting, yet it did not move. Another possibility arose in my mind, and I did not know whether to feel relieved or afraid.
For a moment, the snow eased. The wind tore open my field of vision.
The figure ahead appeared clearly at last.
It was a frozen corpse, its hollow eyes staring fixedly forward. And beyond it stood an entire forest of corpses — some standing, some sitting, some lying face-down, all ragged and ruined, scattered across the devastated ground.
Without exception, every pair of eyes was fixed on the way ahead.
I was shaken.
I had never imagined that countless people before me had failed here. I felt sympathy and sorrow, but also a guilty trace of secret relief, because I would not become one of them.
Because they had not reached the summit.
I wanted to leave this sea of bodies as quickly as possible. Yet the corpses along the path only grew more numerous, until they began to block my way. Ahead, the snow still fell heavily, and the path remained steep.
An ominous feeling seized me.
Do not think. Just breathe.
I waved my hand, as if sweeping those stray thoughts out of my mind. My trekking pole drove even harder into the deep snow. My crampons bit even harder into the deep snow. And I, too, forced myself upward through the deep snow.
The snow grew fiercer.
The wind pressed harder.
After an unknown length of time, I… finally… saw the summit.
But the sight before me made my knees go weak.
The summit was on another mountain.
A taller, steeper mountain.
The mountain I had climbed was merely attached to it — merely a necessary passage toward it.
And I could see even more clearly that on that distant summit, a flag was already standing.
So someone had reached it long ago.
The cold that had once been outside me suddenly entered my heart.
What should I do?
I looked back. The road behind me had already stretched so far. I looked ahead. Another great mountain still waited before me.
But I had already come this far. Perhaps if I only walked another distance like the one before, I would reach it. Yet when I thought about the supplies I had brought, I felt they might not be enough to carry me through the rest of the journey.
Caught between the two choices, I heard whispers drifting in with the wind.
I listened carefully.
The voice was clearly saying:
“I will become the first person to reach the summit of this mountain!”
But this mountain had already been conquered.
I looked down the slope and saw a vast, dark mass of people swarming up the mountain, rushing toward it as if possessed. Everyone was saying excitedly that they would reach the summit, that they would be the first.
I withdrew my gaze and looked back toward the peak.
I had no choice.
As long as I reached it before them, this journey would still have meaning. All my previous effort would not have been wasted.
I raised my trekking pole high. It flashed in the cold sunlight.
Then I drove it fiercely into the snow.
With a sharp crack, the trekking pole snapped.
I had no choice but to throw it away.
Only then did I suddenly feel unbearably thirsty. I opened my thermos, but not a single drop of water flowed out. Everything inside had frozen into ice.
I bent down and drank the snow.
The wind gradually weakened.
The snow gradually stopped.
Warm sunlight shone down upon me, and my body slowly regained its heat. I felt strength filling every part of me.
I walked forward, and suddenly realized that the summit had been right before me all along.
Why had I wanted to climb the mountain?
I could no longer remember.
But at last, I stood on the summit, looking down upon the world, smiling at the dark mass of people below.
I had gained nothing.
And yet I had gained everything.
I died halfway up the mountain.
Ahead of me was the distant summit.
Behind me was the crowd.