Stories from Mt. Fuji

She sits upon one of the wooden benches at the top of the mountain, huddled together with the hundred or so other travelers brave, or stupid, enough to make the trek. They say its lonely at the top, but this time they couldn't be further from the truth, though the masses still aren't enough to create the amount of heat needed to warm the frost from her bones, from her soul. Tugging her jacket tighter around her she closes her eyes and moves inches closer to sleep, maybe even inches closer to death as the cold takes away all feeling. A fun outing with friends for a once in a lifetime experience may just turn into the last time she experiences life. People died hiking Mt. Fuji they told her before she boarded the bus. Better dress warm. And warm she dressed, with her long-sleeved shirts and winter coat. And though she made it to the top, her trial of endurance still wasn't over. She survived the climb, where every step closer to the top brought her a step closer to Hell, in the Dante-esque sense of the realm anyways. Why would anyone keeep going when it was so much easier to turn back? But she struggled, endured, and survived - earning a well deserved rest. A nap that tempted her to sleep forever, to sleep because it was the easiest thing to do to escape the final test against the elements - the road down. But Sleep and Death, Hypnos and Thanatos, are twins after all, and so she must struggle against both to complete the final stage of her journey. So sleep weary traveler for soon you must continue on again.

note: sorry Suru for using this picture of you... unfortunately it was the only picture I had that turned out well to use for this piece

Triumph? No. Victory? No. Alive? Hmm, Alive? Yes. Alive would be the best and only way to describe the feeling of the five weary travelers. Huddled together for warmth along with the rising of the sun, they preserve their collective memory of the event, not only with a simple and single photograph, but in the stories they would forever tell anyone who asked. The rising sun. The perfect symbol of a new day, a new beginning, a new person tempered by his or her own struggles in the darkness of night. Now it represented an end: an end to a journey (a quest really) for the sunrise was the goal and now that it was achieved it was time to leave. No, not leave but rather move ahead, this being an event they would take with them after all, not to be discarded along with the candy wrappers and plastic bottles they accumulated throughout the hike. And so, as the photograph captures their physical proof of a goal accomplished, it also takes a piece of their souls to entrap their feelings in it, only to come alive again during viewings such as this, most importantly at times like this, when a weary traveler just needs to see that the hardships of the night will always be followed by the brightness and glory of the day, and that sometimes the best word to describe the situation is just simply as "Alive."

note: photograph taken from page 78 of Allison O'Connor's photobook "24:00 Japan in Film Photography." See more pictures on her blog at http://urbanresearch.wordpress.com