Face to Face Planes

Some islands may be peninsulas during the low sea tide. Human beings recurrently are lead to think it is indeed possible to communicate with their equals. But then the tide suddenly comes back. Islands are islands; they are definitely never peninsulas.
Picture from Ilha das Cabras, Itanhaém, Brazil

“In the house in front of me and my dreams,
What happiness there is always!”*
Álvaro de Campos (Fernando Pessoa)

*Free translation from Portuguese

Down there stay a deep, very deep valley. Despite this depth, I can easily see from the top of this mountain the clear outlines of the opposite cliff vividly blue. I begin to go down through rocks towards a supposed river, which I deduce must have large dimensions. Although I can see crags and forests in front of me, in their rich details, I’m not able to see anything down there at the abyss’s bottom.

Nothing is down there except an endless declivity. I can’t be sure at all about the existence of what seems the geometrically necessary point of contact between both giant mountains: this, which I keep going down, and that opposite one on which my lucky, exulting eyes meet your gaze.

You, traveler so much as I am, keep going down for days, for months, for years, and longer. So you may now realize how huge these mountains truly are. Down under the cliffs, however, you can see only an unchangeable deepness, which never seems to shift. There isn’t any haze at all, but on the contrary just this terrifying clearness which confronts you with two horizons: the one from where you are coming and the other to which you are going. Both make you think they are infinite.

We keep on walking down this monotonous declivity for decades, without meeting anyone nor anything that could tell us when, or even whether, will we reach ever the end of this lasting journey.

When we look upwards, we aren’t anymore sure about the reality of our memories, which try to make us sure some time ago we actually lived on a land with flat plains, plateaus and highlands.

We have no choice but to keep on walking downhill, despite our strong suspicion that there isn’t any river nor flat terrain to arrive at. Our arrival at that fancied plan horizon would be the only way for our skins to actually touch one another.

One more time, you and I look at the opposite hill. Our eyes meet.
Surely, neither you nor I will eventually be able to cross such depths.

Originally published at reality-to-who.blogspot.com on June 9, 2018.