Distant snow-capped peaks towered over us as I walked outside our highly decorated cabin. The wooden beams that made up the structure of the building were covered in engravings of dates and names. The wood was polished considerably, so much so I was able to see my reflection up close. We were at the bottom of a forever-expanding valley dotted with minuscule villages and hamlets, some in the most unimaginable places possible; places that seemed not to be connected by roads, places surrounded by a circle of trees, some even perched at the tops of mountain passes!
It was an exceedingly bright day, the sky scarcely clouded; you had to squint wherever you looked. You could just about hear the distant cowbells ringing as the cows bent down to munch on the grass and moved around. The raging glacial river rushed in the background. I tried to spot it, but it was just out of sight. Straight ahead, towards the very distant mountains, the peaks covered in thick, misty fog, I could see three paragliders all wearing different, psychedelicly colored jackets; one wearing blue, another red, and lastly yellow. They were all spinning and circling in the air like vultures searching for prey. I turned my head toward the right and saw a funicular slowing trailing up the steep mountain slope. It was vibrantly red, almost as much as the Swiss flag, and it had a step-shaped top. To my left, there were grey and yellow gondolas heading straight into the opaque fog. I could just about see them bobbing up and down by their weight with the cables.
One panoramic view of the landscape filled me with vivacious energy; I dashed onto the street and ran up to the top of the slope. I knew I was out of breath, but it didn’t feel like it. My adrenaline was pumping and I felt like I could run up one of the distant hills in the background.
Everything around me felt like it was happening at once as if an adventure was about to happen, yet there was a strangeness to it. The relaxing birdsong and the gentle breeze made me feel peaceful like I had privacy from the rest of the world. The vast and endless wilderness and landscape made me feel like a single star in the constantly enlarging universe. It gave me a sense of mystery as if anything could happen to my life and the future depending on my decisions either small or big.
Leave a Reply