High above the city, we scaled the tallest mountain we could find, unbothered by the strenuous task. The wind playfully twirled our hair into our faces, enjoying the trip as much as we were. The granite slabs that yawned and stretched towards an expansive azure sheet were speckled with salt and pepper quartz and mica. The stone was moist with dew that slowly vanished in the rising sun’s warming glow.

The air was crisp and clear, far from the urban atmosphere that lay at our feet. Skyscrapers were dwarfed by the mountain range that seemed to force its natural beauty onto a mechanical wasteland. Sure, there were tiny specks of good to be found in the golden dots of streetlights, in swirling architecture that mimicked life. But the monsters inside the city’s inhabitants wrecked any illusion of happiness. They liked to think themselves clean, the people there, claiming their souls were white and spotless. If that were true, it was pale in the way hospital walls and destroying angel mushrooms were; underlying death and misery thinly veiled in a mask of purity.

They couldn’t hide their distaste of us, didn’t even attempt to avert their penetrating gazes when we caught them glaring. You would hold my hand tighter, silently telling me that this battle wasn’t worth fighting. That we didn’t have to prove ourselves to them.

But up and up and up, watching the city shrink to near nothingness, euphoria and bliss could take me in their arms. We could run and dance and sing off key together without any sideways glances. We finally reached the summit, pushing past the thin, rough aspen trunks. The autumnal breeze ruffled sunrise-tinted leaves and floated them over the cliff face.

We sat, legs dangling over the edge, looking out over the mist-shrouded landscape. Fir trees cloaked the rising hills like moss, choking the earth in an emerald too vibrant to feel real. Tall grasses on the eastern plains rippled like waves. Buildings fought to be noticed over the majesty of the snow capped mountains, the red clay canyons, and the rushing, glimmering rivers. Standing starkly against it was the puny little city, with its hateful little people.

But here, high above the city,

We could almost forget they were there.