John Budan

Defeated

Midnight crunching through deep drifts in howling wind and plummeting temperatures. The light from my headlamp casts eerie shadows across the film of blue ice covering the snow. After a couple hours I start to feel the heavy weight of my backpack carrying all the essentials in case of a whiteout, and an ice axe carried for an emergency self-arrest. When climbing mountains, we pause for a moment to rest between each tiny step, creating a pattern of step, rest,step.I turn around and start descending just as morning sun cracks through the clouds revealing the mountains . . .

                                                        summit
                                                      step   rest
                                                    rest         step
                                                step                 rest
                                            rest                         step
                                      step                                 rest

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About the Author

John Budan has published widely. He lived in France where he found his alter ego Guignol in Paris at the Jardin du Luxembourg.

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