[For my son, Holden.]

The cold bit the man’s flesh. He grimaced at its teeth, which by this point had reached the bone. His will was the only remaining protection against the elements—his thick clothing having reached its threshold some time ago. He was determined to press on, regardless of the furies poured out upon him by this fearful and fitful mountain.

“Ha!” he yelled, laughing as the winds carried his voice away, bouncing off rock and ice. “Is that all you got?!” He pressed steadily onward: step by step, hand by hand. He hummed a song as he went, the vibrations warming his chest and enlarging his soul. The song was “The Bear Went Over the Mountain,” which seems strange for a man to hum, but it was all he could think of in his current circumstance.

Suddenly, he heard a loud roar piercing the heady thin air as the mountain belched its hatred at the man’s audacity to ascend its cliffs and slopes. The man looked up to see rock and ice falling to his place. Without time to think, he dove to his right, but not before taking a chunk of rock or ice, he knew not which, to the head. The blood dripped to the snow which sopped it up like a snow cone. Shaking his head to reorient his senses, he let his eyes fall to the red snow; he chuckled inwardly: “Raspberry.” After several deep breaths to resettle his nerves and footing, he looked up from the tops of his eyes to the place where the mountain’s wrathful debris had fallen, shaking a fist in the air. “Hah! Throw your missiles at me, will you? Dodged ‘em … mostly.” He grunted and spat.

The man set his face like flint and pressed onward in his treacherous climb, moving slightly quicker than before in hopes of shaking free that beastly cold still clinging to his body with its razor-sharp teeth. Grit and blood textured his face—his will bent on conquering the mountain and winning the glory.

The mountain trembled, as if realizing for the first time just what it was that was digging its feet and hands into its side. This was no mere man; no, a god, or the son of a god, ascending to his rightful place. Icy tears poured from the mountains head, pelting the man’s god-like body. He spied a deep gash in the mountain’s side and crawled his way to it, hoping to find a moment’s respite within. He was bruised, bloody, and swollen. He lay there and rested a while.

Just three minutes later, the mountain’s crying subsided. It could no longer see the man—or the god—but it felt him, motionless, as if waiting to be digested in its belly. Just then, the man reemerged with a new sense of strength, energy, and hope, as if reborn. The summit was before him now, and the glory of the sun peaked over the mountain, shimmering like a king’s crown, like an ultimate prize at the end of a game.

The movements of the man were no longer strained. A new spirit sprung in his limbs, moving and leaping like a lion after its prey. The mountain had no more shakes and no more tears, only humble submission to this god-man who shone like brass in the sun. The teeth of the beastly cold were broken, and it fell to the hard earth like a dead thing. The man neared the summit….

“Holden!”

The man paused and peered through the falling snow.

“Holden!” the voice sounded again.

But, wait. Is that…?

“Holden! You’re shaking like an ice cube. Turn on the hot water.”

The man, I mean the boy, snapped out of his imaginative escapade. He was sitting in an icy cold bath with bubbles up to his head. “Mom! I was climbing Mt. Everest!”

“You’re going to catch a cold,” she shouted back, walking down the hall.

The boy put his chin into his hands. “Hmmph. I was almost at the top, too.” He rolled his eyes. “And ice cubes don’t shiver,” he mumbled. “They’re meant to be cold. They were forged in the cold.” He thought about that word, “forged.” He had just learned it in his fourth grade English class. He quietly repeated its synonyms: “Formed. Created.” Then a powerful smile came over his face: “And I am forged in fire!”

He turned on the hot water.