Granite is dense. Shiny. Majestic.

As it happens, it is missing any crack barring it.

It is missing any dimple that may have given it an eye.

It is missing any edge that may have slit a neckline.

It’s puffing up.

And the pitch is called L’Écu, the shield.

 

When the granite is wanting any grip and when setting up any safety gear as well as nail-pulling are thus impractical,

There remains a single means. Unique. Final.

The reserve that anticipates such grand circumstances.

 

Grab a water-dip claw.

It’s a plain metal claw, sharp and acute as an adze.

A granite-fishing instrument.

Settle it at this sticking flake’s apex

By a hair’s breadth.

There it is.

Hang a small, three-stepped thread ladder at the claw’s butt.

Breathe.

Bring up thy walking appendage as high as the first step.

And warily trust this thin brink with all thy terrestrial weight.

Very warily. Any jerk can fling the claw away, past its feeble grip.

Gradually, thy weight shifts sideways, at the ladder’s vertical.

Step by step, the claw grips deeper and better in the granite.

As warily as can be, lift thyself up.

Prevent at any price that thy eyes get a glimpse at what carries thy entire weight.

The air is quaking.

 

Le Capitaine, David Fair