They were psychosomatic, physical manifestations of the guilt he felt, guilt that he bore on his stooped shoulders, guilt that weighed him down like a malevolent Christ child, an evil, poisoned carcass that clung to his back, the same but different from the cherub carried by St Christopher… and ask any priest, vicar or believer because that is HEAVY.
He saw the lies as carcinogen, or cholesterol, with each half-truth he felt his chest tighten and his heart beat harder.
He had started to dig about four years ago. His ambition was to dig a hole straight through the rocky fell side of Helvellyn right down to the valley floor below, install a lift, then invite tourists to take the easy way to the top and possibly achieve some ‘add on’ sales of bars of chocolate, gifts or souvenirs.
He had always marvelled at the way continental Europe utilise their mountaintops, not chained to the saccharin ideals of the rural idyll or the false utopias promised by Wordsworth and his cronies. ‘The French’ he thought ‘see no problem in plonking ruddy great hydro electricity plants on top of their hills, so a small café on top of mine shouldn’t cause any offence’.
Helvellyn is of course inexorably linked to Wordsworth… On the approach past Grizedale Tarn ‘The Brothers Parting’ marks the place where the gruesome twosome - Wills and Dot, last saw their brother John before he was lost at sea age thirty three and high on Striding Edge, an unknown painter named Charles Gough fell to his death. A nobody in his lifetime, he was immortalised by his more famous contemporaries in both picture and poem, they seemed fascinated by the macabre fact that his body was not found until three months after his death and his dog remained by his side for those long months, his body was fully clothed but striped to it’s skeleton, the dog, by all accounts looked well fed.
Earth had first been broken on this foolish venture almost a year before and the act of digging quickly gave way to a tilting at windmills. The brown dirt and green slate became his demons and as the psychosis set in, the dreams of selling a mars bar and milky tea whilst providing quick, eco-friendly transport to one of England’s finest views gave way to suicidal urges and the lies…we can’t forget the lies..
The reality was, he had stopped digging three months into the project (the same amount of time it took for that poor unfortunate fleshless wretch to have his body discovered) he had hit rock and his shovel was so ground down it was now no more than a pointy stick. He stood knee deep in a hole, frantically hacking away at solid rock, but he could not see that, he could not see the futility of his plight.
This is where the lies came in, he was digging the hole on a popular tourist path and throughout the day many walker would come up to him and ask if he was alright, he always replied ‘yes thank you’ when he knew perfectly well he was fucked in the head.
Once was fine, what remained of his sane self could shrug that off as being polite, but after months of repeating that single lie, he could take no more. He bent down and picked up a handful of rock and dirt and put it in his mouth, he swallowed. He repeated this action, eating a mixture of stones and soil, filling his mouth crunching it with his now broken teeth.
Blood poured out of his mouth and mixed with the rock and soil, out of the corner of his eye he could see a brightly coloured anorak, it’s wearer was standing, watching him, two walking poles and a red hat. The walker spoke “are you alright?”, he spat out the deadly, blood soaked mountain cocktail, teeth mixed with rock, mixed with blood, mixed with soil. “DOES IT LOOK LIKE IM ALRIGHT IM TRYING TO EAT FUCKING HELVELLYN?” …… the end
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