Frank Weber 
Until the Next Time 

The mountain went about the business of its day, and the normal, expected sounds of nature surrounded them. Still, the old man noticed how little he could hear from the visitor walking with him. If he concentrated, he thought he heard footfalls into the snow and the crunchy leaves and twigs beneath it, but he couldn’t be sure. They moved in a ghostly silence. Then the thought popped into his head, "The Ghost of the Mountain" and that saying finally made perfect sense to him. They walked up to a ridge that overlooked the knoll, and then stopped, the visitor looking down the other side of the ridge at something below. The old man stood beside him and saw, far down below them, hidden in all of the underbrush and seemingly uncrossable rocks and boulders, a clear and flowing stream. The man slipped and fell now and then, and each time he did, the visitor patiently waited for him to get up and move on. "Very strange" he thought to himself. "After all these years, I am being taught how to live on the mountain!" He felt himself to be more a part of this mountain.