The Ballad of the Sad Heart

The Ballad of the Sad Heart
NH Brunk

Wearily, so wearily he crept up the side of the mountain, creeping so as not to disturb the spirit of the gargantuan temple and creeping wearily as his soul was burdened. The traveler stopped by a small spring to fill his canteen before he proceeded. As he filled it, he realized that he never saw this spring before and as he listened to its gurgling water, he thought about his travels thus far.

---

The journey had been arduous to say little, daunting to be frank, and impossible to be forward. Like Sisyphus, he’d rolled his burdened soul up this mountain so many times before, only to chase after it, skinning knees and cutting his hands as he reached out to brace himself, sliding back down behind it. He remembered the people that had pointed and laughed as he fell and how none had thrown him so much as a rope to grab onto each of the times he’d fallen. Each time, he’d sat at the same dried up riverbed at the base of the mountain and stared up above its tree line where it seemed to meet heaven. “One day,” he said.

---

He found himself, one day, sitting on the most comfortable rock in the riverbed, looking up at the mountain’s precipice. His stare must have indicated something prominent as another traveler stopped by him and squatted down.
“Ah,” said the young man, “you’re looking at the top!”
“Yes,” said the traveler without breaking his gaze, “one day I’ll reach it.”
“You’ve tried before?” The young man looked away from the mountain and rested his stare upon the traveler.
The traveler looked up and into the stone blue eyes of the young man. He had shaggy blonde hair and was dressed plainly, but he had a confidence about him that was almost visible as an aura of contentment. “Yes… yes I have,” he replied.
“And why have you not made it? There’s a shepherd I stay with on the top; he helped me find a walkable path in the midst of all the crags and snares up its sides.”
“I’ve tried so many times I’ve lost count, young friend,” said the traveler to the other. “Each time I try I fail, and each time someone gives me advice on which path leads to the top, only to laugh at me when their word leads to a slippery spot where I lose my footing.”
“Only one man lives at the top,” said the traveler. “Perhaps only he and those who have met him are fit to offer directions, straight and true.”
The traveler fought with this thought and lashed out at the young man. “Why is he so arrogant as to not make the way known to everyone else? Shouldn’t everyone be entitled to know the path that leads to the summit?”
“People think they’re ready for the top; they’ve sat where you sit now and have sought direction from those that have met the shepherd. They travel up the hard parts, but stop on its sides when they find an oasis, only to sit and guard it so that others don’t come across another place like their own. These were the people that lead you astray, and will be the ones who continue to offer bad advice on your next trip; you must avoid them and have faith in my directions.”
“Why?” said the weary traveler. “What guarantees do I have that your directions are any better than theirs?”
“None other than I have been to the top and I came back down to help others get there too. Here’s a canteen,” the young man handed it to the traveler, “in all of your pack it doesn’t appear you’ve remembered one.”
“The others told me it’s less than a few days journey, I didn’t think I needed more water than I could drink down here.”
“My friend,” said the young man, “the journey is as long or as short as we make it, but it’s always best to prepare for the long-haul.”
“Humph… well, thanks,” muttered the traveler, somewhat annoyed with the young man. Though he wouldn’t come right out and say it, he expected these directions to end him up in the same place he began, staring at the mountain and thinking, “One day.”
“So how do I get to the top?” The traveler spoke quickly, the words sounding more biting than he intended.
“Ah,” said the young man, “you’re willing to try again?”
“One day I’ll make it! Please, tell me how to get to the top!” The traveler was near tears, feeling taunted by the younger man. “If you’ve made it before, tell me how to make it!”
“My friend,” the young man spoke quietly and placed his hand on the sulking traveler’s back, “I do not want to tell you, I want to take you myself. Your pack looks heavy, let me carry it for you.”
The offer of assistance had never accompanied any of the directions he’d previously been given and as his pack was heavy, he welcomed the respite from its burden. He slowly removed the straps from his shoulders, stood and picked up the pack. The young man took it out of his hands and put it on his own back with such ease it startled the traveler. “This man must be stronger than he looks,” thought the man to himself.
The traveler stood fully as his back cracked and popped. He’d long been under the burden of that pack and it felt refreshing to stand without its weight, without stooping. His moment of ecstasy quickly ended as his mind brought him back to the moment.
“I’ve nothing of value in that pack! If you decide to make off with it, you won’t get much for it.” The traveler was still wary of the young man, to the traveler, he had every right to be.
“Friend,” said the young man, cool and collected, “this isn’t a trick. We must get going though, it’s almost noon.”
The young man started off in front of the man, walking in the riverbed rather than toward the mountain. The traveler questioned his decision for only a moment before he picked up the canteen and hurried behind the young leader. The young man walked faster and surer than the traveler was used to, it took him a few minutes to adjust to the pace, but excitement caught on and he didn’t want to stop.
Within an hour they’d come to a clearing at the base of the mountain the traveler didn’t recognize. He’d always been told the easier way was around the other side of the mountain, yet he trusted this man for some reason he couldn’t explain. Thus far it appeared he at least knew one way others didn’t. Without speaking, they ascended through the clearing and up the mountain. It wasn’t as easy as some of the ways he’d tried before, but the traveler was surprised that each time he slipped the young man reached back and offered a hand to stop his fall. Sometimes he took it, other times he made the same mistake he had each time before and stopped himself with his own hands, cutting them and cursing the ground that dug deep into his palms.
After one such outburst, once the traveler had regained his composure, the young man looked at him and said, “Why do you curse the ground when it’s your own unsure footing that caused you to slip?”
“I… the…” the traveler strained to respond, but no words came. Instead he continued on in silence.
The pair came to a flat place just as they met the tree line, it was grassy but even in the dimming light of the afternoon; the man could see that it was painted with wildflower colors around a bubbling spring. He didn’t remember any such place from his previous journeys, but was refreshed as he knelt down and filled his canteen.


The traveler snapped from his daze just as the canteen started to overflow back into the spring, down onto his hands and back down the mountain. He sighed as he sat back on his haunches and drank the cool water. The young man sat down quietly next to him, placing the pack down gently as if it were no heavier than a feather.
“So what’s your story, traveler?” asked the boy as the traveler quenched his thirst. “Why this mountain? Why try so many times?”
The traveler wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt and looked back into the stone blue eyes of the young man. He sighed, “It’s my destiny.”
“To reach the top?”
“To see what’s there, young friend.”
The young man answered, “Anyone could have told you what’s there; the shepherd and his small flock, his home. What difference does it make?”
“It’s not knowing, it’s seeing. Going to see it is my destiny.” The traveler turned his head away from the young man’s eyes; he sensed the young man knew he wasn’t telling the whole truth, or that the burdens of his own soul were seeping out of his own eyes.
“Traveler,” said the young man, “forgive me for being forward, but I know it’s not the whole truth. Like you, I had to see what was at the top of the mountain for myself, it was my destiny. Looking down at the riverbed from the top, as barely recognizable as it is, every step that you take up this mountain will make sense to you there. Every painful slide down, every taunt or jab that the others have made will fall away. Just remember that as we keep on you must keep putting foot in front of foot. You’ll continue to slip, the climb gets harder from here on out, but I will walk behind you and watch that your footing is sure.”
“Why do you do this?” asked the traveler, unable to keep the tears behind his eyes, sobbing as he looked again into the thoughtful eyes of his companion.
“Because, this is my destiny.”
The man put his head between his legs and cried; he had not known sincerity or honesty like this before. Each time it was a misleading direction, a sneer from one of the people who lived on the mountain, or their thundering laughter that echoed in his head as he slipped and fell off one of their “paths to the top.” But this young man was genuine; the traveler recognized it and was overcome.
He looked up; the young man was standing over him with his hand outstretched. He spoke softly, “we’ve got to continue if we’re going to make it by night.”
The traveler put his hand in the young man’s and hoisted himself up. He reached around his guide and hugged him deeply as he sobbed into the young man’s shoulder. The young man hugged back harder and whispered into the traveler’s ear, “I wont let you fall, we’ll get to the top together.”
After a moment, the traveler pulled back and nodded, wiping his face with his shirt then motioning for them to carry on.

---

Just as he had said, the young man walked behind the traveler, warning him of unsure footing that he saw ahead. When the traveler slipped, the young man caught him. They carried on for another two hours until the peak was in sight. The traveler looked back at the young man whose smile stretched wide. The young man nodded and the traveler took off at a sprint.
Clamoring over the rocks, he flew up until he stood upon the mountain’s precipice. The young man, still carrying the traveler’s pack made his way up shortly behind him.
Each man looked at the other, tears welling up in their eyes. Neither had to say a word, their embrace captured the moment. The traveler opened his eyes over the shoulder of his dear friend and saw the mountain’s top drew down a little into a wide plain covered in grass, impossibly green and dense for the altitude. The traveler reached around and removed his pack from the young man, putting it on his own shoulders. “It seems so light,” thought the traveler to himself. Just then he saw the strong, old form of the shepherd coming towards them, leaning on his staff as he looked at the two men.
“Welcome friends, I’ve been expecting you!” His aged voice allowed a quiet comfort to creep over the traveler, finally giving him a sense of peace, that he had fulfilled his destiny.
“And I you, shepherd,” said the traveler, feeling as though he had just arrived home.
He looked down the mountain and saw the riverbed below; over the snares and rocks they’d made their way through, thankful for this young man who had finally shown him the way up. He smiled, and as he turned back to the shepherd and his friend he thought to himself, “it all makes sense.”