In the beach of Anima Key, there has always been this harsh reality reaching myth limits, that whoever approached the isle would begin to envision hallucinations. That occurred to most pilots in the past, so it was decided by the tribe, as measure of precaution, that Aster, sixty and four years old, back then, should come to be the pace controller and the bearer of the flag of the Anemaki.
“Both forts have made proper use of the fundamental concepts of convergence of infinite sequences and infinite series in the well-defined framework of the tribe’s mission for victory in the pirate war, thus chose me to be the regulator of the fleet.
I am extremely moved and marginally happy, added I perfectly know the extent of liability, attributable in my parallel role as the standard bearer of our ideas.”
His experience as a differential geometer; a specialist in the study of change, and the reputation of his stability against any exhaustive method which can occur unexpectedly, were sufficient enough to put him in charge of the formation.
Moreover, the mission was different from those in which Emil the Obsidian is preferred as the fastest of them all. The plan was about approaching the island through paddling, in secrecy, and for the conquest of the peak after climbing on the isle’s hard and sharp slopes. The convoy, in disciplined agony, was set to prove, in practice, for the first time, that the improbable is absolutely true and what is false is utterly possible.
A hunter fish, however, pulls Aster’s gaze away from the island and soon both get lost in the turbulence of his left paddle. In the water, Aster’s reflection turns him young again.
“Young! Yes! Never would I bet on this possibility and if I did I would certainly lose! So now, it seems there is hope for me after all! But maybe this is my test. I had wild beauty, I remember this, but this is no time for empty futility. Crazy wild here is the island and this vanity wave. I must fight it!”
Looking back, he finds a partner in his madness, Reese Cerussites. “Hey Ree, a hunter fish just pulled my gaze but got lost in the turbulence of my oar. You? Do you see otherwise? But, why are you rowing next to me? Weren’t you supposed to be at the tail? Oh, I am starting to vaguely see you turning young too! What is happening to me my friend, am I losing pace?”
“Whatever is caught on you sounds mad, yet we must be aiming at the flag! Old controller get a grip we have not lost the groove, not yet, just take that look into the void, find your constant, look further back, and look at Anima Key!”
Aster enters fear. Until then he was doing extremely well in the group navigation, but the illusion of his youth shook him, his heart slightly lost its stable footing and now he’s worried that deep inside, he wants more. He still has a strong sense of duty though, so he looks even further back, to where the fleet departed. He needs to loosen his mind and adapt to the only road ahead, full of visions and blur.
This unique place shows remotely single. It’s landscape ornaments glow gleaming. There is the grand cave that has indiscriminately hosted so many. The distinct strongholds of the large tree and of the small cave and even the dark hostile pirate rampart on the sidelines of the beach altogether form a certain quad triple integral. This sight alone drags Aster in even deeper waters. Blurred with aged but trained eyes, he rediscovers the sacred path that connects the beach of Anima Key with civilization.
Suddenly, the form of the path degrades its dimensions in two and shows more like a painting on an old weathered paper, while in his ears the earlier words of Reese are still ringing ” …look back, look at.. Anima Key!”
He could never forget that these were the same words he had first heard from Jahniet Crocus, back in the distant two thousand and five, when he was given an improvised map with the painted path.
“…Look at Anima Key! Since you have been searching for a breath away from your concrete life, a calm sleep under the stars, nature bio cooking and mental connections by the seashore, that’s where you’ll find it all. But be aware!
The first rule says that if you climb the inaccessible and miserable, but sacred trail, the place will greet you as a friend and the weather will get to join your side. Only those who pass through this path find what they are looking for at Anima Key. This intermediary place! Where there neither sun nor moon shines…There, where you might think you reached the end of worlds! Just follow the diagram that shows the correct way. So I’ll draw you a map to guarantee that you will come find me!”
“That is good info so far, mate! Sounds like we will have fun there! Just organize your rampart and somewhere below the meteoric cliffs, we will discover you!” Aster points with his finger somewhere between the two caves on the map. Jahniet’s facial expressions when looking at the map, were enough to convince Aster and his girlfriend Eris, that this place was indeed the most ideal and exotic destination.
A week later, as expected, the long journey to get there, would be so quickly erased from the memory, as steep as the entrance forms and prevails, marking the beginning of the trail.
“Do we undertake that? Should we climb up there? What we do can lead to our downfall. Do we want this fate for our affair?”
“You see these intertwining terraces on the lips of cliffs? The loose soil will give us balance! No matter how we got here, we do not step back. What happened to move you back and forth? Eri…menstrual?”
“You read my signs right you think? Then you should climb up first and pull me over.”
“We need to grasp from tree handles, so be careful not to choose the sensitive ones because they crack and break.”
“Do not continue with your distorted naturalistic connotations, your mathematical transports. Or else you will be dragging me like a derivative!”
“Phew! But do you know that the sacred path has two parts, an anode and a cathode? In uploading, it will be me in front and you can do the download! Let me unload now, then we get started.”
Nature, with its jagged cliffs and the earl of runner clusters, does not make explicit the trace of the path and dramatically complicates all efforts to find robust handles. Hands are cut, knees bent and fifty grams of blood and sweat get poured, during the first climbing steps.
“Fortunately, not on my head!” Aster thought and confessed as he saw her yellowish mixed reddish traces disappearing under their feet.
The path is wrapped in a fierce hill, darkened by the shadows of tall trees on a beautiful high mountain. Its feet have been edge crushed for centuries, forming vertical, sharp, multi-level, inaccessible meteoric cliffs. The first people who arrived and once fought here, discovered that the only way of approaching the beach by land was through this wild hill. On the top of the peak, they succeeded, through the branches of trees, to distinguish the first majestic colors of the sunny Anima Key.
This miracle’s revelation from then on is rendered through the appropriate slow pace, while the descent, though harsh, results uninterrupted to an end. Or a brand new beginning, one might say.