Average Destruction

                Avari picked her way around another patch of vicious looking bushes, and glanced at her watch. She could sense that she was almost to the top, although the ever-ticking hands read only 9:32 am. Leaping over a small boulder, she hoped her inner compass was correct and she was now scaling the side of a ‘nostril’.

            This mountain had always seemed enticing to her: Sleeping Giant. She had been the first to sign up for the summer camp’s expedition to the top.

            The name of the mountain was curious, because the mountain’s crest was shaped in such a way as to suggest a face and body- of enormous proportions- that melted and bled into the soil of this small Connecticut town. Avari had often imagined taking the trek up and seeing the face from the tip of its nose, to experience Nature’s art the way a bird might. At the start of the hike she had raced ahead, and was now far ahead of her varied camp friends; she was much faster than most 5th graders. For this she was grateful, as solitude and the outdoors would always go hand in hand for her.

            She swatted the air in front of her to clear a path through some gnats, and stumbled a few feet before her feet realized that she couldn’t go up any more. Grinning triumphantly, she revolved slowly on the spot to take in the view and catch her breath. Now to find the giant. After careful evaluation, she recognized a drop off as the chin and from there the mouth, torso, and limbs. Her eyes glinted greedily and she spun around. The face! Avari stood proud as she beheld her giant. She was about to start looking for her camp friends when some vines stirred. Her jaw practically fell off her face as she stared; the vines withdrew to reveal a cave, empty and black. Mind racing, Avari soon recognized it as an eye, making the vines an eyelid, and making the giant- real. A loud, excited whoop blossomed from her mouth, but her feet seemed rooted in place while a bush flattened itself and parted to reveal a corresponding eye. The giant gazed at Avari and she felt a vast consciousness press against her own.

            Look again, Avaricia.

            Avari blinked, and then turned to study the body again. And she saw.

            Avari saw the unnatural drooping of the jaw. She saw the disjointedness of the right arm and the wound, the chasm, of Main Street bisecting the left. She saw the broken, crumpled leg and how and how the other leg was simply gone, replaced by a petty shopping mall and consequent parking lot. Horrified, she thought, Who could have done this to my beautiful mountain?

            YOUR mountain?! No. Anger flared in the base of the mount and pebbles rumbled around her feet. She screeched and hopped around, afraid of the power this giant possessed until the rumbling was abruptly cut off, as if the giant was composing itself. She realized her mistake, but would not admit it. Avari straightened and, hands on her hips, she glared loftily into the deep cave-eyes. Now she could detect the otherworldly dimension, and she saw in those eyes very real, eerily human emotions. She saw the countless eons of wisdom, a flame of anger and restlessness. But one sensation was crystal clear and dominated, presiding over all the others.

                                    Pain.

            The giant contained such an immense quantity of pain. Avari sank to her knees and moaned. She felt as if her own flesh had been pitted with buildings and torn apart with bulldozers and dump trucks. This giant could recall every soda can and plastic bag that had been casually discarded on its side, every second of human construction, of nature’s destruction. The agony had no end.

            For this story, we shall sum up the hurting as ‘mind blowing,’ because that is exactly what it did. Poor little Avaricia, as young as eleven, greedy as a chipmunk, could not take the knowledge of evident cruelty. She clutched her ears and clawed at her face, tangling her fingers in chocolate strands. Avari collapsed, gasped, gulped, and twitched a bit. Overcome with anguish, her slate gray eyes rolled and then ogled the clear, luminous sky above.

            The first graders found her body.