The High Life

Stopping on a small hilltop to rest, I suddenly got the feeling that I had been at this same place before. I could swear that the bare rocks I was sitting on had exactly the same pattern as the ones I had stopped by three days (and half a dozen blisters) ago. The landscape also looked familiar. From where I was sitting, I could see green moors, dotted with white bog cotton and long stretches of red heather, framed by a mountain ridge that looked like a row of falling dominos. A deep, calm tiredness penetrated my body. Through my drooping eyelids I could see a small group of grouse landing near some juniper bushes less than two hundred feet from me. I leaned back and fell asleep in the warm, soft light of the August sun.