A man stood on a hill and looked toward the mountains.
They stacked themselves against the sky, one behind another, endless and smug, like they knew something he didn’t. He squinted and thought, If I climb the highest one, I will be able to see everything. Valleys, truths, beginnings, ends. The whole mess, neatly laid out.
Another man stood beside him and laughed—not loudly, just enough to bruise the idea.
“It’s impossible,” he said. “Mountains upon mountains, as there are gardens upon the gardener. You climb one, and another waits. Always higher. Always farther.”
The first man smiled. Not because he disagreed, but because he’d been told not to.
“Then I shall do it,” he said, “because you say I cannot.”
Somewhere in the grass, a serpent laughed. It wasn’t mockery—more like amusement. The kind you have when the ending is obvious but still entertaining. An apple lay nearby, untouched, its skin tightening in the sun, sweetness slowly retreating inward.
The serpent slid closer and whispered,
“What is the price of a fig?”
The man didn’t look down.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I seek the highest mountain.”
So he began to climb.
He passed orchards without stopping, springs without drinking, villages without asking questions. Food was a distraction. Rest was for people who lacked vision. Every ridge he conquered revealed more peaks, each promising that this one would finally be enough.
Days thinned him. Weeks hollowed him out. His thoughts grew tall and narrow, like the mountains themselves. He could still see everything—rock, sky, distance—but nothing close enough to touch.
In less than a month, the man starved to death on a slope that wasn’t even the highest.
The serpent returned, inspected the body, and shook its head—not in pity, but in correction.
He had seen mountains.
He had not learned the price of a fig.
And the apple remained unbitten, waiting for someone who understood that vision without sustenance is just another way to disappear.
> by Eve & Navigator