Writer of the Week: Dan O'Brien, Year 13

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Scarface

It runs down from the vertice of my left eye, widens across my cheekbone and reconverges just above the edge of my jaw. It’s a rough type of skin, a topography of trauma, with red spurs descending down to my normal skin around the edge, as if everyone couldn’t already see it enough. I speak and smile valleys and peaks of marred derma. The peaks are lighter, never tanning, not that my normal skin tans much anyway. 

I chase the isolation of where only nature speaks. The Karnali, at 3962m, is the epitome of human solitude. A monotonous boredom fills me with prospective contentment. It is a three day ascent to the Karnali headwaters. The first day involves solely driving my hired Jimny from Ghorahi on winding clay roads dotted with potholes. The sacred fishtail peaks of Machhapuchhre seem to admire the terrain of my face, each line and ridge spilling my secrets. The mountain follows me everywhere, searching for the marks below the surface.

Each pothole makes a different noise as the car rolls into it. Sometimes it is a ‘clunk,’ sometimes it is a ‘thunk.’ One time it was a ‘crack’ which filled me with trepidation. The further I get from the urban sprawl of Ghorahi, the more treacherous the road becomes. The potholes merge into ruts, and the camber of the road slurs to the left, faltering like my own face once did, a geography remade by damage. I weave across braided rivers plaiting the riverbed’s shape, but at the same time altering it. That evening the air was warm, with glacier midges rabidly circling my tent. By the morning, the air had cooled, the condensation on the tent had set in and frozen, and the midges with their malicious biting intent were nowhere to be found.

The second day was by far the most dull, and therefore far more to my taste. The road was much too rutted for my driving expertise, and so for the sake of my hirecar deposit, I packed up my rucksack at 0630, and locked up my car. Not that anyone really was around to steal it. I realised just how much I had come to dislike people. My boots mashed up the still dust, leaving wounds in the Earth that, like my own, would never quite fade. Nothing ever moved up here, apart from the occasional freighting yak beating out the same clay path on this road, the only road to connect the small villages to Ghorahi hospital. The most boring and beautiful place on the planet. The road sloped upward in a way that looked flat, but my quads argued to the contrary. The increase in altitude soon began to add up, both in the number of metres above sea level as well as its toll on my burning muscles and pace as I slogged up the road.

Only scavenging birds like the Himalayan Griffon and little bugs live at this altitude and in this climate. There are many glaciers that span the Himalayas, including that which feeds the Karnali river. Glacial lakes are something special, as the grinding of the rocks under the glacier as it moves makes ‘glacial flour’ which becomes suspended in the water, giving it a pale opaque turquoise colour. Just like scar tissue, formed through intense experience, leaving behind beauty and damage simultaneously. 

I plodded up to my final camp at the edge of the Karnali basin. It was a beautiful view to take in, especially in an oxygen deprived state. The sun slid parallel to my eyes, its rays glancing off every surface - the blue wall of raging water, the still tarns, milky cataracts sprinkled around the basin. This was the head of the Karnali river. Peaks loomed above me, indifferent now but strangely familiar, as if they knew the weight I carried. The sun lit up a small but persistent stream twinkling past my boots at the edge of my camp. I knew not to drink from it because of the bacteria hiding in the glaciers. Parasites like Giardia can make trips like this just as memorable, but a lot less pleasant. 

I descended to the bank of the raging headwaters of the Karnali river. The deafening rumble of the water threatened to shake me from this side of the Earth, but finally, I was at peace. At the water’s edge, soft spray traced my own meandering outline, as if the river itself was stitching me back together. This was the natural monotony I needed. I had food for about a week, if I rationed it. Besides, I could see the twinkle of snow trout flashing like coins in the sun at the occluded water’s surface. If I could catch them, maybe I’d never have to go back to life with other people 

Up here, the fake smiling snow melts, revealing just how deep the cracks go. In the solitude, the hidden crevasses of my past stop widening and begin to knit closed, as if nature understands what I can not.