The Note

David's eyes flashed open as he raised his head from the numbing blanket of snow. The winter scene hadn't changed at all - the white flakes still glided over his head, the gray clouds still obscured the sun - but it no longer weighed David down. He still felt the bleakness all around him, but it didn't matter. The steep, craggy path declined from here. The Sage was only fifty feet above him. He lifted himself up from the snow, nearly stumbling under his heavy backpack. He checked his hand: the Note was still rolled up in his palm, though he couldn't feel it there. He trudged on, his eyes fixed upwards.

A blustery gust so sudden blew up towards the mountaintop. Whatever strength he had left in his fingers was chilled away, and the Note flew from his grip. He swiped at it, but it darted away from him. He cried out, "No!" He almost fell again when he lunged for it, but the adrenaline flowing through his veins carried him up the path like a roaring engine muffled by the stone and snow. Still, he lost sight of the Note as it floated away. Blind faith in the wind's direction led him further up the path.

The fuel of the adrenaline didn't last long. His left leg gave out just ten paces away from the end of the path, and he fell again into the snow. David looked up again with blurred eyes, only to see the Note flutter above him again. He pushed himself up from the snow in spite of his weakness, but he tumbled backwards, landing on his backpack. He felt the plastic corner of his first aid kit through the worn fabric of his backpack, and he yelped out of surprise more than pain. He had forgotten how much he had been carrying, how many textbooks, how many journals and supplies he lugged up the mountain that he didn't need. So he undid the buckle around his waste, grasped the rock wall next to him as best he could, and he lifted himself up again, this time without any burden holding him down. This wasn't enough, though: his left leg was injured, not just weak, and he couldn't walk. He gripped the rocky ground beneath him, causing one of his fingers to bleed.

He looked to the sky, which was still so gray and chilling. "How much more," he shouted to the heavens. "How much more?"

David looked at his now-injured hand. Blood stained his palm. He felt the smoothness of the stone beneath his other hand. He sensed a sort of nakedness on his unburdened back. In that moment, he remembered his promise.

"Gwendolyn, for you, I would climb the highest mountain. For you, I would give my blood. For you, I would give up everything."

He gripped the path again with his bloody hand, and he pulled himself forward. Like a man in a desert gasping for water at the sight of an oasis, he saw an end in sight, an end to his journey. He crawled on his belly for the last ten paces of the path, scratching and scraping his abdomen and his chin and arms. If not for the cold and the height, a wild animal would have caught the scent of the blood he was leaving in the snow. He didn't care. As he figured, the Sage's wood-and-stone shack would soon come into view.

David reached the top of the path, the top of the mountain. He believed firmly that he could die in that moment. The Sage stood there, twenty feet away, stoic in his golden alb and bear-fur coat. He had the Note firmly pinched between his thumb and fingers.

"Sage…" That was all David could muster. Cold saliva and flakes of snow stuck to his numbed lips. The Sage came to him, his alb and coat hovering just above the thin snow at the top of the mountain. He pulled David up by his arm and wrapped that arm around his own shoulders, and he carried David to the shack. David's eyes grew dark.

David woke up wrapped in the Sage's coat, which was warmer than David could imagine possible on the mountainside. Before him was a large limestone ring dug halfway into a dirt floor, and in its center, a pile of dry, black wood. The Sage sat cross-legged on the other side of the ring.

"You come," the Sage began, "to know what this note says."
"Yes," answered David, still groggy.
"This script, child, can only be read in smoke." The Sage produced a green salt from his alb and scattered it on the wood. "Shall I burn it now?"
David hesitated. The Note was all he had left of Gwendolyn.
"You are conflicted, my young one," said the Sage. "This note, from whom did you receive it?"
"She was…" He stopped. "Gwendolyn."
The Sage smiled. "You seem scared." David nodded. "You loved her," the Sage added. David nodded again.
The golden-clad man examined the Note. "My child," he said, "take this as a testimony of love, this fear. She must have loved you greatly, and you must have loved her greatly. For love in its rawest form, when it is so great, is terrifying."
David pondered this. "But why do I fear?"
"You want the love," the Sage replied, "and you know it is there. But your heart, the heart of man, too small to contain so much of it, too human to understand it, conceals it in ways the mind can understand. For you, it is this note."
"Burn it, then," David said. "I've got nothing to lose."
"Are you sure," the Sage asked.
A minute's silence. "Yes, I am."

The Sage placed the Note upon the salted timber. He took a candle from the wall and touched the flame to the wood. The wood and the Note shot up in a brilliant white blaze, which produced a grey cloud of smoke. The cloud turned yellow, and then the color of parchment. It bled black ink, and formed the ancient script from Gwendolyn's sweet hands. Slowly, it transformed into David's own English.
"Yes," it read. In a moment, it disappeared, and the cloud and Note vanished.

David closed his eyes. The smile he left with Gwendolyn, a smile of pure peace, overcame his face.