update from sparkleup

writing/dont-look-up.html

@@ -38,15 +38,15 @@
 <p>And I, as anyone with half a whisker&rsquo;s worth of curiosity, did precisely that. What else was I supposed to do? <em>Not</em> look up?</p>
 <p>A sign listing no consequences, no enforcement, that bore so vague a warning all but invited one to look up.</p>
 <p>So I looked up.</p>
-<p>I looked up and met the eyes of the dead and felt in that moment not only the fullness of my mistake, but my very soul leaving my body. I looked up and saw there, up at the level of the treetops, a figure treading, stomping, walking through the air. I saw the possum above me, saw the tears streaming down her face, saw just how dead she was even as her feet pounded a trail I could not see but which was nonetheless as real as the one I stood on. I saw her walking through the air and, though it wasn&rsquo;t true, I imagined I could see the blue of the sky through her. And I saw her, though it oughtn&rsquo;t be a surprise, looking down, very pointedly <em>not</em> looking up.</p>
+<p>I looked up and met the eyes of the dead and felt in that moment not only the fullness of my mistake, but my very soul leaving my body. I looked up and saw there, up at the level of the treetops, a figure treading, stomping, walking through the air. I saw the possum above me, saw the tears streaming down her face, saw just how dead she was even as her feet pounded a trail I could not see but which was nonetheless as real as the one I stood on. I saw her walking through the air and, though it wasn&rsquo;t true, I imagined I could see the blue of the sky through her. And I saw her, though it oughtn&rsquo;t be a surprise, looking down. Very pointedly <em>not</em> looking up.</p>
 <p>I looked up and met the eyes of the dead and she laughed. She laughed! How could one twenty feet up in the air laugh at me, here on the ground? I was the one who was as I should be, and she was the one who was as she should not!</p>
 <p>But then the enormity of my error crashed into me and knocked my soul from that anchored form and suddenly she was alive and I was dead, and I watched as her path began to steeply descend. I watched her face wrestle with the dichotomy (dialectic?) of pain and relief at the sudden ache of muscles that comes with descending after so long ascending, of coming alive after so many days or weeks or years of being dead. And then I watched a third emotion, pity, crest in those features as her black-stained-pink ears canted back and her furless tail flitted this way and that to help her keep her balance. I saw pity in her gaze as she met mine, and the unspoken knowledge passed between us that whatever curse she bore was now mine to carry.</p>
 <p>I watched as her path took one switchback, then another, through the air and then her feet met the trail &mdash; the anchored trail on which I stood &mdash; for the first time in who knows how long. I watched as, with pity painted upon her face, she mouthed a silent apology to me, and stumbled down the path to where my car even now was parked, if it hasn&rsquo;t already been towed.</p>
 <p>I have inherited her curse. I have died so that she may live, and even as I stomp and stamp along the trail, the evidence rolls out before me like some red carpet from some thinner reality. I don&rsquo;t know how long I&rsquo;ve been walking, I don&rsquo;t know how long <em>she</em> had been walking, but I know that this is mine to bear until it isn&rsquo;t, until some poor fool looks up in the air and sees me, however far above, or that very air thins to nothing and I gasp and struggle for breath and burn up in the heat of the sun even as I freeze to death, there in the rarefied air.</p>
 <p>I am a ghost. That is evidence. I am a ghost because I ignored the admonition and looked up to the heavens and saw a lonely ghost in turn, and even as she stepped down to earth and breathed the breath of life, my own breath was taken from me.</p>
-<p>I am haunting these trails, these woods. That is evidence. I am the fox who walks and walks and walks. I am the fox whose hissed breaths between clenched teeth carry curses and pleas both.</p>
-<p>And my feet no longer touch the ground. That is the final evidence. My claws no longer dent the dirt that is half mud, half rock. My pads crunch against some more numinous trail now, something less tangible and more real than the anchored earth below.</p>
-<p>I am inches off the ground, now. How long until I am feet off the ground? How long until, as I perpetually look down to the dirt and rocks and roots, will I be able to measure my distance to the ground in multiples of me? How long until I, too, walk at the level of the treetops?</p>
+<p>I am haunting these trails, these woods. That, too, is evidence. I am the fox who walks and walks and walks. I am the fox whose hissed breaths between clenched teeth carry curses and pleas both.</p>
+<p>And now, I realize, my feet no longer touch the ground. That is the final evidence. My claws no longer dent the dirt that is half mud, half stone. My pads crunch against some more numinous trail now, something less tangible and more real than the anchoring earth below.</p>
+<p>I am inches off the ground, now. How long until I am feet off the ground? How long until, as I perpetually look down to the dirt and rocks and roots, I am able to measure my distance to the ground in multiples of me? How long until I, too, walk at the level of the treetops?</p>
 <p>Why bother thinking about this, though? Why try and understand? What is there to do about it but wait until some poor fool looks up to the heavens and sees a lonely ghost, meets my eyes, and lets me weep in pain and relief and pity?</p>
 <p>And what will <em>I</em> even see? Will I see the small beasts of the land making their nests in beds of needles? Will I see the birds of the sky making their nests in crooks of branches? Will I see Arrowhead Lake &mdash; my goal! Do you remember when I had a goal? I do not &mdash; making its nest between three peaks? Will I look down on the mountains? Will I look down on the state? The country? Will I look out to the ocean? Will I see God in the curve of the earth? Will I see dreams in my uncounted hours on the trail? Perhaps I will finally divine their meanings: what did it mean when my muscles gave out and my voice failed? What did it mean that pink horses galloped across the sea? Why mene, mene, tekel, parsin?</p>
 <p>And until then, what is there to do but keep walking? What else is there to do but keep walking and, lest I miss my chance at living again, not look up?</p>