broken ax gap

Come open those peepers and fetch me mine map, and I'll tell a tale of the Broken Ax Gap. It started in Reno long before your birth, when I was a vagabond drunken with mirth. And whiskey and rotgut and slow-roasted bones, with whiz-bang and chutzpah, with elephant stones. It was me and Eddy, the Billygoat Crew, who together know more than fifty men do. We'd step into harness and make for high ground, we'd climb just about any tall thing around. Then one day came word of a peak far away, whose very existence I rue to this day. Its name is Tall Hatter, in Utah it be, it ended the friendship of Eddy and me. His aunt lived near Zion, we rode to her digs, with sacks full of walnuts and apples and figs. We climbed smaller, lesser peaks (which were all crap), then filled bag and belly and made for the Gap. A wind it did howl, some flurries blew in, a swirling white madness that ate at our skin. I then said to Eddy, Come now, friend, retreat! but he could not suffer to ever be beat. While I scraped for shelter he charged on alone, forever to vanish – consumed by the stone. The lesson here, for young and old: be sound and steady, truthful, bold, eat your veggies, smile and praise, these now are your golden days. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥