“I wonder whether they will reach the tops,” said Dirge.
“I hope they do!” Mirth plunged in.
Dirge continued, speaking plainly, “Most wanderers give in rather easily and early on. They seem so happy to reach the common views. I suppose some of them don’t realize there is more. But others know there is more! I suffer when I think of their loss.”
“Yes. Yes… The last of the lot came so close, didn’t he? When he crested the waterfall, I could barely contain my singing! Oh Dirge, the excitement of having another wanderer come to see what remains indescribable and incomparable to a lower and lesser view, it gets me every time! I feel my spirit like a hurricane for the uprise of joy within me! And then, when a wanderer gives in… the spirit takes a blow, and I can only collapse” Mirth leaks.
“We share this pain. I don’t know how the spirit does it. When I feel it will break, it only bends. And when it bends… it never fails to thrust back with even greater force and a stronger desire. The boundlessness of spirit is a phenomenon unlike any…” Dirge pondered in a state of awe.
“Oh, but surely the wanderers must feel this and know this? Surely they must, Dirge, how can they not? Why do they not?” Mirth rallied as she twirled to free up her burning eagerness.
“I can’t say. I feel like I should know, but I can’t say. The spirit is of an order of its own. We can only continue in it’s strength, and would that the wanderers do the same! For then, and then only, will they reach the tops.” Dirge answered with great care.
Overpowered by the reality of Dirge’s words, Mirth surrendered to tears. Quietness filled the space between them for what felt like eras. Wanderers ventured on, some reaching for greater views. Many others, however, made homes for themselves at the views they reached. Though some of these views offered high and wonderful sights, the wanderers who made homes became otherwise occupied, dulling and dumbing their wits from the spirit’s thrusts to the point that it no longer affected them within.
The spirit’s force could only increase when early homes were made, and its desire grew. The spirit’s desire for the tops to be seen is the desire for the tops to be shared. There is nothing else to it. The tops are there to be enjoyed and shared. Nothing fulfilled Mirth and Dirge more than to welcome, with victory song, the wanderers who reached the tops!
By no means did reaching the tops mean reaching the end, for as it was said and proven, the spirit is boundless. The tops were, all the while, the end of all things as Mirth and Dirge knew them.
From the tops, the wanderers were however passed on to different kinds of keepers. Keepers of a different order from Mirth and Dirge. Keepers who, among other phenomenal things, beckon the wanderers to fly!
But that is a different chapter to the same story. A chapter for another day. A chapter for when more wanderers reach the tops!