The mountain is a small one, as these things go, but it still takes the better part of a day to reach the top. I know from my memories that there were trails here once; smooth, easy paths that led to the top, but they are long since gone, overgrown or eroded away. It’s the memories that drive me here. They flit and flicker in my mind and drive me upward, through boulders and brush and loose soil that slides out from under my feet.

The view from the top is worth the trouble. The landscape stretches out before me. Hills and valleys, and groves and lines of trees marking water sources. The odd shapes and colors that don’t seem to match the rest of the landscape are the remains of structures. Towns and roads and houses. There aren’t much left of them. The sun and wind are enough to wear things down on their own, but the regular fires that sweep this area have ensured there is nothing left but scattered foundations and cracked parking lots quickly reverting to nature. But stunning as the view is, that isn’t why I came here.

It takes a lot of searching to find it, and I worry that in all these years it was lost. But there it is, hidden among massive granite boulders. The box is badly battered, so dented and rusted that it can no longer open properly. It takes all my strength and an impromptu stone hammer to force it open. The contents are not much better. They were sealed in plastic to protect them from the elements, but that plastic is badly decayed. I hold the yellowed, disintegrating pages as gently as I can.

Some of the entries on the crumbling, water-stained pages are obliterated, but some are still legible. I gingerly flip through the pages, carefully peeling them apart. So many entries, some only a single line, others filling a page. So many different handwritings, large and small, clear and messy. So many people leaving behind their messages.

July 6 – Today is Maddy’s birthday! Hot today, glad we brought plenty of water, but the view from up here is amazing. – Isaac + Maddy

No family to spend Christmas with, so this is my gift to myself. It’s such a beautiful day – Myles 12/25/41

2 February: This is the tenth anniversary of the doctors telling me I had a year to live! Here’s to many more – Arlie, with Destiny + Darrel

29/7/42 – Fourth time we’ve been up here this year. Our favorite local hike. – Conti & Anton

Back before everything ended, people climbed mountains for fun, and they left their messages here at the peak. I read each and every one that is still legible. Some spark memories, tying in to the web of connections in my mind. Others create new nodes. These are fragments of so many lives, crumbling to powder in my hands even as I read and record them. Every other trace of them may be gone, but they survive here, and now in my own records.

I file the new memories away and put the crumbling pages back into their box, as delicately as I can. They won’t survive long enough for anyone else to find them, but it seems almost sacrilegious not to do so. I scan the horizon and pick a direction, and slowly make my way back down the mountain in the gathering dark.