Two

One of the Sherpas gets distracted for a minute. He’s young; he’s still a teenager. Nonetheless he has already summited, twice. The first time when he was fifteen; the second a few months ago. This young Sherpa doesn’t wish to spend his life on Everest. He’s saving up to study abroad. In Dhaka, perhaps. Or in Delhi. He’s made some inquiries about enrolling in Statistics. But now, as his gaze focuses and empties out over this topographic hollowness, he fantasises that his vocation could be naval engineering. He likes boats. He’s never been in one: it doesn’t matter. He is fascinated by floating.

Who isn’t? Who doesn’t envy the jellyfish and its drift across the open sea? That sensation of going with a flow. That subtle phosphorescent unfurling, devoid of vanity; let the currents take care of the rest. To float. To disentangle yourself from the course of history; not to bear that cross. Amorality without excesses, without guilt. Blindness and bioluminescence. Tentacular electricity that discloses the dark of the ocean at night.