Ask

      We don’t talk about them much—only when they swoop down and damage the mountain road. Then, when we’re shading our eyes to look across a steep, jagged gorge, or staring sadly at a heap of rubble on the path, someone says, “I swear they’re some kind of Pteri. Did you see the feathers?”

      But no one really knows.

      I don’t think about them. It’s impossible to know when they’ll arrive, and when they do, there’s no stopping them. You’ll see a shadow, maybe—and then, it’s over.

      We all want to get to the top of the mountain. Pets from every Neopian land climb up these rocky paths, and sometimes you hear about someone making it to the summit. I’ve done well for myself in that respect—I get closer every day, a steady ascent. Others aren’t quite so lucky. I’ve heard stories.

      As bad as the Problems can be, I really shouldn’t complain. But it would be nice to reach the top of this big old rock eventually, after all this hard work. Years and years I’ve lived on the mountain, and I’ve seen so many Neopets come and go. Mostly, the going gets tough and they give up, and I don’t hear from them again except in the letters we exchange.

      I write a lot of letters. You have to, living like this. How else could I keep in touch with anyone? Here in the midst of Tyrannia, on a brown mountain so high that the clouds often float in and make everything damp, it gets pretty lonely. There are a few Neopets here that I run into often enough, in the little campsite villages where climbers rest for a while, but most of my real friends are down on the ground, and I don’t want to lose touch with them.

      One time, I wrote my friend Andrea, who lives in Happy Valley, and said, “This is so hard. Nobody knows what it’s like, climbing up a mountain day after day, straining every muscle in your body, only to have a Problem descend and knock you into a ravine. I lost about three weeks of distance the other day because one of them caused a landslide that swept me down hundreds of feet. I heard somebody broke his leg, too.”

      And she wrote back, “Zee, why don’t you be more careful? You’re lucky it wasn’t worse. Why don’t you just avoid these Problems? I mean, really,” which is the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard, because you can’t just avoid Problems. You can’t predict when they’ll arrive, and they move too quickly for you to get out of the way. You just have to live with them. But most Neopets don’t understand that.

      “You’re a Pteri,” said Adrian, a Poogle who climbed alongside me for a few months last year before he decided to quit and move to Mystery Island. “You can’t complain about the Problems. They don’t go after you because you look like them.”

      I don’t really look like a Problem, except that I’m a shadow Pteri, and the shadows of the Problems are just about all anyone ever sees of them—just shadows with wings. I’m not just a shadow with wings, of course, but for most Neopets that’s close enough.

      Adrian was kind of right, though, because I’ve never actually been injured before. He, on the other hand, lost a tooth and got three long scars on his arm from Problems, not to mention a ton of scratches and bruises. So he can cry victim and it’s okay.

      Sometimes I wish I would get hurt. It sounds awful, I know, but I feel like it would make other Neopets understand my journey a little better. But still, that’s stupid to say, and I don’t really wish I would get hurt, only that somebody would give me credit for how hard it is to climb up a mountain like this. But never mind. That’s going too far. I shouldn’t have said it.

      Even though I haven’t been bit or scratched or broken any bones, the sight of a shadow on the mountain road still makes me feel sick. Like, literally sick. I want to throw up and crawl in a cave and crumble to dust, but I can’t do any of those things, so I just watch as the Problem swoops out of the sky and wrecks everything. And then it’s gone and I just stare at the damage and say to somebody next to me, if there is anybody next to me, “Well, there was nothing we could do.”

      And no matter how true those words are, I still feel stupid when I say them.

      Usually, the journey isn’t so bad. I actually like it a lot. I know it sounds like I don’t, but that’s just me being me, complaining and stuff. Really, the mountain is an amazing place. First of all, it’s in Tyrannia, which is absolutely beautiful. From my altitude, on a clear day, you can see across the plateau and all the way to the jungle. The rocks are this dried-mud, burnt brown color, and in the sunlight, they radiate heat so it looks like they’re shimmering, almost like water. And the greens of the jungle—there’s just no comparison. The color is so rich, so saturated, it’s like the trees are going to explode and tumble across the landscape, throwing their vines across the dusty plateau.

      I know that was a lame description, but just picture Tyrannia at its best, and that’s what I see most days. And when I can’t see, it’s usually because the clouds are low, and I’m climbing through a fog. I love fog, for some weird reason. I love how it’s moist but not wet, how it’s cool but not cold, how you can see pretty clearly for a short ways and then not at all any further. Fog is mysterious but comforting, like an impersonal embrace, a hug from someone you barely know. And the Problems don’t usually come out when it’s foggy. They usually arrive when the day is clear and bright and you can see exactly where you’re going. As soon as you set a mark somewhere up ahead on the path and say to yourself, “I’m going to reach that spot today,” and you figure out how long it will take and what you’ll do when you get there, right at that moment when everything seems like it’ll work out just right—that’s when the Problems drop in.

      I don’t know why it surprises me anymore. I should just expect it now, that whenever I’m close to the next village or campsite, a Problem will swoop down and knock me off the path.

      But it just keeps happening. I’ll have a packet of letters in my hand and be thinking about the Weewoo mailing station up ahead, and then I’ll hear a crack or a boom and half the mountainside will come crashing down in front of me.

      I’ll just stand there for a second, stunned. I’ll stare at the brown rocks and think, What just happened?

      And then I’ll look down at the letters in my hand and think, I can’t believe it, I promised these Neopets that my next letter would arrive this week because I was sure I’d make it to the mailing station, and now I won’t get there for days, and I’ll look like an idiot and everyone will tell me, “What the heck are you still climbing that mountain for?”

      I want to throw the letters off the edge of the mountain. I want to scream at everyone from miles away, “Why don’t you climb this mountain yourself and see what it’s like? When have you ever done anything worth writing about? I’m doing something huge here, and you don’t even know it, and you don’t even care, and you don’t even ask why!”

      I want to take a pickaxe and pulverize this ridiculous pile of rubble. I want to throw a rock and knock those stupid Problems right out of the sky. But I’d feel bad about that, because it’s not really their fault—they’re just part of nature, part of Neopia, and they won’t ever change.

      After the anger subsides, I realize that it’s my own fault anyway. I should know that these things will happen. I should know not to make promises I can’t keep. I should know that climbing this mountain is difficult.

      And that’s when I just want to let go of everything and cry.

      But if I did that, I’d only feel stupid, crying over a stupid mountain, like some kind of idiot. I can’t cry. I can’t complain. There’s no reason to, except for my own disappointment, and that’s just a result of my own stupid hopes anyway, right?

      So I keep climbing.

      And after a day or two, I forget about the Problem, and I’m happy again. Tyrannia is a beautiful place. Making my way up the mountain isn’t so bad, and at least I’m making steady progress. I go higher every day. It’s something to be proud of, this journey of mine. It really is. I don’t want to give up. I won’t give up.

      Some of my friends on the ground say to me, “Why don’t you just fly up the mountain? You’re a Pteri, aren’t you?”

      Others say, “What’s at the top of the mountain, anyway? Why are you trying to get there?”

      But I never answer. Know why? Because I lied—nobody asks those questions. Nobody really cares enough to ask. Nobody knows why I’m climbing this mountain; they just see that I’m here, and that’s all. That’s just who I am: the Pteri who’s climbing that mountain in Tyrannia. Nobody asks me why I’m here.

      Maybe if you ask, I’ll tell you.

The End