once there was something but now there's just a piece of atmosphere
The journey is what's important. The journey is what lasts the longest, lungs screaming streaming eyes from the moment she hits the air. The air is clear and steady and her pulse is jagged like a scraping spill of salt against glass. She climbs with only the barest directions, how in the hell do you tell someone how to find peace of mind? 'Half a klick past the fourth outcropping to the left. Mind the mountain goats.'
When she finds this place much of it will be the same she thinks. The same small gestures, the same broken little flutters of words that mean nothing at the time but stick in the blood that pounds in her wrists, behind her eyes. Much will be the same, but there are things that can't be the same. The first time she hadn't ever meant to leave; if she couldn't make it good there they would kill her or she would just fade into the swirling damp of the atmosphere and it would be all right.
This time she has to be able to go home.
She keeps climbing.
When she finds this place much of it will be the same she thinks. The same small gestures, the same broken little flutters of words that mean nothing at the time but stick in the blood that pounds in her wrists, behind her eyes. Much will be the same, but there are things that can't be the same. The first time she hadn't ever meant to leave; if she couldn't make it good there they would kill her or she would just fade into the swirling damp of the atmosphere and it would be all right.
This time she has to be able to go home.
She keeps climbing.