I Sit, and Watch

by Owain G. Evans

All I do is sit, and watch. Watch for the light, that?s what I?m told. So I watch.

Reading keeps me patient, but it?s hard when you must watch. Constantly watch. The cold will fray my patience and some days I give up and snap. Some bitter curse to an empty mountain top. You won?t know futility until you?ve screamed to those hills. Not even an echo. That?s all part of the loneliness I suppose. Some days the loneliness simply nibbles at my mind and I feel as if the day won?t end. Other days the loneliness subdues me completely like the landslide I call to swallow me whole. But now, I just watch.

I think now back to the warm nights in the pub. Those well-acquainted, sourly-accepted questions. Followed by the verbal hand on the shoulder. Pity get?s you nowhere. Especially not on the worst days. There?s no use for pity up here. You?ve just got to sit down, glance paragraphs and watch, with the occasional flaring. Of the soul, not the beacon. But today was not one of those worst days. Today was a nibbler. Today, I just sit and watch.

I?ve never lighted it. Not once. They don?t even allow you to have your own fire going to keep you warm. Too much of a risk, apparently. That said by a man yet to experience these icy peaks. He doesn?t get it. You can?t get it unless you?ve been here, watching. It?s like childbirth, except longer and more painful. They tell me that I?m important; I can save a nation, call for help, or start a war. But all I do is watch.

There seems no point to this. What they say, what they always say, means nothing. It?s hard to explain. But when you spend all your time looking for something it becomes hard to see anything at all. It?s like thinking about a certain word for too long, like stultify or ennui, ennui, ennui, ennui. It ends up becoming meaningless and wrong. I don?t know why I even bother to watch.

And yet how my blood rushed at the deceiving sight of a curious, reflected flash of a distant snow-drenched peak. At least I saw that.

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Owain Glyn Evans is a young, Welsh writer currently studying English and Popular Culture at Cardiff Metropolitan University who will soon begin studying a Masters degree in Creative Writing. When he?s not describing himself, he?s writing, writing, writing.