"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah"

"Trixieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!"

Oh my god, no. This can't be happening. We trained for years for this. It's only Rainier, not Everest. Just a little over 4 miles up. We only had a few hundred feet to go, and my wife fell.

I wanted to let go of the mountainside then and there. I couldn't live without her. She was my everything. My best friend, my business partner, my reason for living. I. . .I. . .oh god, what was I going to do?

I looked down. No, I guess I wasn't going to let go of the mountainside. I was too chicken-shit. One thing I knew though, was that I wasn't going to come down. I was going to get to the top of Columbia Crest, and stay there. I was going to freeze to death to-night. It was slower than a fall from the mountain, but it took a lot less courage which I didn't seem to have.

We should never have done this. We should never have gone on our own. We should have gone with an expedition, but now it was too late. One of the rebel team was dead. We didn't even tell anyone what we were going to do. Damn us. Damn me!

Well, I didn't just want to cling to this mountain like this. I had to get to the summit so I could just shed a few clothes, relax, and join my wife.

I wonder if this would have happened if I'd carried some more of her supplies. She'd been one strong lady, but I still had quite the advantage. If only I'd been more insistant. Trixie, the perpetual tomboy. She always had to prove she was man enough for everything. That attitude may have killed her, but I'll never know. . .until I cross over too, that is.

I was in top form, but mountain climbing is painstakingly slow. I was also carrying a pick, ropes, spikes, a hammer, and a fairly loaded back pack, among other things. Without all the gear, my progress would have been faster, but. . .

I was going up to die. I didn't need the food, the propane burner, the propane, or the canteen. I dropped the canteen, but couldn't do much about anything else at the moment. I was stuck with the load for the rest of the trip. If I got thirsty, I had snow.

I came to a point where I could unload all my unnecessary items. I just dropped them. I didn't care where they landed. I didn't even care if they landed on anyone at the time, though that was not likely. Nothing mattered to me at the moment but my own misery.

My fight to the summit was about two and a half hours from when my wife had fallen. What I saw when I got there, I wasn't ready for.

There was a flat green meadow with all kinds of trees and wildflowers. There was no snow, and it was warm. When I looked behind me, I ended up looking down the mountainside which I'd just ascended, but before me was a world than couldn't have existed.

I hauled myself up that final ledge, into the meadow. Then my mountain seemed to have gone. I was surrounded completely by the meadow. I dropped all my gear, took off my gloves, my jacket, my outer shirt, pulled off my thermals and my T-shirt, and put my outer shirt back on. I left everything where it fell. What was I to do? Bury it?

I couldn't freeze to death here. It was too way too warm. I wouldn't starve, either. Not this month, anyway. There were too many fruit trees. There was also a stream.

I went over to the stream, and tried the water. It was cold, and very good. "Harold," I heard a familiar feminine voice whisper.

I whirled. No one there. "Trixie?"

"Follow the dirt road." This was a high, but masculine voice. There wasn't anyone there.

I stood up, and saw the trail. What direction? "Follow the music."

Music. What music?

Then I heard it. Fiddles, flutes and pipes. Faint, oh so faint. It sounded like Irish music, but it had a lot of minor chords.

I followed the sound.

I should have been able to see the players, I thought. The country was pretty flat, and if the music had been over the horizon line; I wouldn't have been able to hear it.

I was so into the experience that I'd forgotten I just came up a mountain, and I even forgot my own sadness at losing my wife.

The music was getting clearer. It was happening too slowly, though. If I had been approaching an actual concert, the music would have been amplified much faster. That much I was aware of.

It was a while, but the music started to sound like it was almost there. Then I started picking up smells. Heavenly smells of roasting meat and cooking vegetable and baking breads.

I could almost hear people talking.

Suddenly I saw two figures running toward me from an oak grove. One was a lady with short auburn hair, in a hiked up, long blue-green dress. The hair was like Trixie's.
A man of light red hair ran with her, and he was in a black tunic, black leotards and boots, also black. The woman overtook him, and when she approached; I found she looked just like Trixie.

Her arms flew open. "Harold! You made it!"

I embraced her back. "Trixie. I thought I lost you forever. Didn't you lose your hold on the rope?"

The man who ran with her had stopped a few feet away from us. "No, she didn't. She pulled you down with her. I didn't let you percieve your death as it happened, though."

"I didn't see myself fall either," said Trixie. "Donn here, gave me the illusion that I lost you about ten feet from the top. I was going to go to the top to jump, but the scene changed on me; and Donn took me to this killer party over by those trees and told me to wait a little, and you'd be by soon."

"I closed my eyes and smiled as me and Trixie held on to each other." "Where are we?"

Trixie chuckled. "We're at Tir na nOg. Be glad you have an Irish wife."

"Oh, I am," I said.

"So let's get back to the celebration of your arrival, stuff our faces and dance until our feet fall off," said Donn with a smile.

I caressed Trixie's hair before we let go of each other. "I think I'd like that."

"I know you will," said Donn, as he took each of us by the hand and led us to the best outdoor bash I'd ever been to.