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As Reiko rode up the steep slope to the 8.5th station, unsure of where she was going, she noticed that her headache and nausea had subsided.
Reiko, who had almost no experience in mountain climbing, had been suffering from altitude sickness ever since she first started climbing Mount Fuji, but when she reached a height she wasn’t able to reach in the past few days, she was suddenly freed from the pain.
She could feel her distracted mind becoming clearer. She could see each one of the pebbles scattered along the bulldozer trail. She could even grasp the position where was riding, as though looking at it from a bird’s eye view.
Her specially-made Cub, which had lost power due to the low oxygen levels at high altitudes, was in surprisingly good shape.
The body of her bike, which had been shaking violently due to the thrusting from the road surface, now only vibrated gently as if it was riding on a well-maintained forest road in the lower mountains. The Cub was running in the way she wanted it to.
This is a dangerous situation, she thought.
The senses that told the body when it was in danger were becoming paralyzed. It was said that this condition could also occur when climbing on foot. The brain, deprived of oxygen, would cause the person to be under the illusion that it could walk any mountain path no matter how steep. As it was, the person would slip and fall or become unconscious and unable to move any further, giving their life to the mountain.
Reiko didn’t hesitate to continue climbing. Even though she was in a situation where she should stop climbing, she still wanted to climb. Even higher.
A signpost came into view, as though pushing her to continue her reckless actions. She repeated the ascents and turns, using the driving skills that were more ingrained deeply into her body than her brain, and passed the 9th Station. She didn’t remember how she had rode until now. She was riding and here she was.
Reiko was half unconscious as she steered her Cub. She climbed the increasingly angled trail while prying her tires from it.
Even at full throttle, she felt as if she was in a different world, steering her slow-moving Cub with all her strength. She fell into the thinking that she was riding on the national highway all night, which was no improvement. She didn’t know who she was, what she was doing, or where this place was. She couldn’t even think about how much of the road there was left.
She saw something ahead of her. Just as she thought this, her Cub’s front tire lifted off into the air. Before she could even think about it, her reflexes kicked in and she shifted her center of gravity to try and get it back to where it was. The tire would not touch the ground.
If that’s the case, then why don’t I just fly in the sky on my bike? Keeping the front wheel lifted, she rode with only the rear wheel for a while.
Her Cub was holding on in a situation where falling over was inevitable. That took a few seconds. Her Postal Cub lost its balance and fell to the ground, tumbling down the slope.
The Cub hit a rock on the side of the road and stopped. Reiko, who had experienced several falls in her life, kicked off of her bike and slid on the ground to avoid hitting the rock. Her work clothes, which were weak to friction, tore, and the skin beneath it got scraped.
The pain from her wounds gave her a headache and nausea she had never felt before. She had no idea it would be this bad. She didn’t want to climb another mountain for the rest of her life, but she was in so much pain that she thought her life would end right then.
It took her a while to be able to sit up. She looked at her bike before looking at her own injuries. Her red bike stung her eyes. What came into her view was something she wished she hadn’t seen.
Reiko’s Postal Cub fell over on a rocky mountain trail, slipped and hit a rock. Several exterior parts were blown off, and there were large scratches on the bike.
The engine seemed to have been struck and oil was leaking from the crankcase. The structure of the bike body itself looked strange, probably because the frame was also warped.
Reiko reached into the breast pocket of her work jumper and pulled out her phone. It was only then that she realized that she had several wounds on herself and was bleeding. As soon as she saw the wounds, her body started to ache.
Reiko operated her phone with her fingers, which were not working properly due to the shock of the fall, and called the lodge at the 5th Station.
“Yes, I’m done. Can you pick me up on the way back from transporting supplies to the summit?”
The owner of the lodge, who transported supplies to the summit, soon showed up in a transport vehicle with continuous tracks.
The owner stopped by on the way up to make sure Reiko was okay, and after dropping off the cargo at the summit, he carried her and her Cub on the way back. He said that it was good that it was a Super Cub, which could be carried with human strength, unlike an off-road bike.
The owner, who was usually taciturn, talked to Reiko as she rode on the back of the truck.
“You couldn’t go all the way up?”
Reiko turned around without replying. The morning sun had thinned the fog and she could see Mount Fuji. The store owner reached back from the driver’s seat and handed her a green apple.
She accepted it and bit into it. The sourness of the green apple wetted her throat.
“But I don’t feel so bad.”
Beyond the 9th Station. Reiko, who was on the verge of using up all her strength and falling over, felt certain about it in her hazy consciousness. She felt certain that the summit was so close she could almost reach it.
Reiko’s summer was over.
Thank you once again, made my weekend
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot
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