Watching dragons play

Watching dragons play

It is two in the morning. It is so very cold, the coldest I have ever been in my short life. Many times during the night I have feared for my life knowing that if I stopped moving and sat down I would not get up again. One of my companions has already been found asleep on the path. His lips were had gone blue. I am the last, if I stop here no one will find me.

Finally at four I have no choice. My body is about to collapse. I reach a station though no on seems to be there. I cannot go any further and even if I do I will freeze anyway. My feet and fingers have gone totally numb and the altitude sickness is beginning to get to me. The sign above me says that I have reached 3200 meters and all my companions have pushed ahead.

I have to rest but the sun won't begin to rise for another hour. Placing my backpack between myself and the biting wind I hunker down, determined not to fall asleep. I have been awake for over twenty-four hours but I can't sleep now. To keep awake I think of home and how I got to where I am.

I came to Japan on the JET Programme to assist in teaching English. My prefectural JETS had agreed that we would climb this blasted mountain. "If old grannies can do it, then so can you!" seemed to be the team leaders mantra. Screw it! I had not seen a single elderly person on this mountain. They, like the rest of the sane people had climbed it during the day. "It's a night climb. We will watch the sun rise at the top." So trusting him we had scrambled in the dark like lost children as the wind howled around us full of angry ghosts warning us to turn back.

As we climbed things only got worse. The wind, growing ever stronger seemed now to have a life of its own. Pushing and pushing it jostled us, causing us regularly to lose our footing and threatening to send us spiraling down the side of what had become a dark abyss below out feet.

The grit had gotten everywhere, into our eyes, our ears and our clothes. It even stuck to the tears down my cheeks and the constant trail of snot that ran from our noses, leaving black streaks down our faces like war paint. But this did nothing to bolster our courage at all. Having made it through the rocks, the wind and constant dust I had reached 3200 meters and could go no further. The mountain had defeated me and as the sky finally began to lighten I was sitting in a heap, weeping.

As the sun began to rise and turn the sky into those gorgeous shades of magenta and gold, people began to stir in the station. The Japanese began to pour out, all dressed sensibly in ski-suits and windbreakers. What I sight I must have been to them. There I was, a single lone foreigner, shining green eyes red from the dust and the crying. Black grit clinging like snail trails across my face. I sat shivering violently in a little heap against the wall. They poured out seemingly having slept there overnight in order to watch Lady Amaterasu, goddess of the sun show herself in her splendour.

As the sun struck my face I immediately felt better. The night was over. I had made it and I was still alive. In a few minutes I managed to stand, easing out my locked and stiff muscles. I looked up to the top of the mountain only to see it covered in mist. I learned later that my companions had seen nothing of the sunrise, but here the sky was clear and Japan was unfolding below me. As I stepped up to the railing with the others, several clouds swept across seeming to chase each other down the mountain side as a long slender dense cloud of white formed right in front of us. I must have looked confused because a woman touched my shoulder and pointing to the slender cloud said in a stilted English, "Duragon cloudo desu yo." I nodded. "Gooda Lucku." I smiled. She placed her hands together and prayed. I did too, though who or what I was praying to I did not know and nor did I care.

I am not sad now that the mountain beat me. In fact I am ashamed at ever having thought of the concept of 'conquering' the mountain. But I learned my lesson and she had forgiven me. The mountain had given me the honour of being the only foreigner to watch the dragons play on Fuji-san that day.