From up here everyone looks like toy people, smaller than my Barbie dolls, more like Legos. I see the top of their heads and there’s no particular pattern to their movements. They all believe they are doing something relevant, going somewhere important. But from where I stand, they are just scurrying dots operating within the confines of a border they can’t see.

Up here I’m bigger than they are; they can’t bully someone who has a view of the top of their heads. Up here I’m invincible. Lifting my arms, I imagine summoning hail the size of giants’ fists and pummeling all the little toy people and their stuff till they are flat.

Now I see colorful pancakes along the landscape and I imagine starting over, building more toy people atop the old ones. All of them love me and do what I want them to. They clamor over each other competing for my attention, striving to be the one who makes me happy. They are glad when I laugh, aggrieved when I cry.

But when I descend this hill, all my power will be gone and I will be the toy. They will look atop my head and pummel me with their fists till I’m flat like a pancake. They will make new toys to tread upon me and will flatten them too, making me less than a memory. When I descend this hill, I’ll be nothing…again.

Maybe I should remain here standing on top of the world. My only adversary will be the cold. I don’t care much for winter, but its frosty teeth don’t bite as hard as the people at the bottom of the hill.

© D.L. Lunsford