Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 10:58:21 +0200 (CEST)
From: Elias Schwarz <eli_schwarz@yahoo.de>
Subject: The Mountain chapter 1

Alright, hey everybody out there. This is Elias and what is following is
the first chapter of my first story. So be nice, ok? I mean, this is not my
native language, but if I want this to be read, I better not write it in
Raeto-Romanic or Laos or whatever.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER

To be on the safe side of things I also herewith declare that YES this is a
GAY story, about a GAY youth on its way to adulthood. Although the word gay
doesn't seem to appear a single time in the first chapter of the story:
don't let yourself get confused, relieved or impatient

Some graphic narration of sexual conduct between strongly consenting GAY
MALE human beings might just be on the way for one of the next chapters.

Neither my soul nor the soul of this story can be saved from eternal hell
and, considering that hell's gonna be a pretty hot place full of nice gay
people -- none of us wants to. So please spare your flames, I don't want to
put on the teflon suit every time I open my inbox.

This story is (nearly) entirely fiction, any similarity to existing persons
is definitely existing, yes, but if YOU, among Billions of internet users
think you have found one, consider that the chances are 1:1.000.000 that
you are wrong. So let's scrap that.

As I mentioned above, the first chapter of the story doesn't really have to
do about anyone being gay in any way at all. I didn't really plan to do it
this way. It kind of just turned this way under my hands. So be patient. I
already cut the introducing story as much as possible, trying not to maim
it in the process. I am in doubt about the outcome, so I would be really
grateful for some feedback.

If you feel you want to share some thoughts about the story, if you have
some good criticism to offer, some suggestions, or complaints about too few
sex scenes with heavy equipped guys getting spanked and calling each other
dirty names, just about anything that comes to your mind: do email me at
eli_schwarz@yahoo.de

Now go and enjoy the story


THE MOUNTAIN

 Chapter one

For "Anshun", my dear teacher and Thomas from Berlin, my gay godfather


 The hawk soared up into the air, his brown wings glinting golden against
the pale blue sky. For a moment I stood mesmerized and watched it gliding
effortlessly on the mild morning breeze. Then the feathered predator seemed
to spot something in the valley below me. It folded its wings and like a
brown flash it stroke down on a hidden prey, somewhere below where I was
standing. One moment later the hawk returned, unsuccesful but with the
unbroken pride of a true hunter. It let out a cry and caught in the spell
of its sheer untamed beauty I answered.

A surge of wild joy, of unlimited freedom surged through my veins. My blood
sang a wild song, a tune far older than the few years I had counted yet,
far older even than the so called civilization I was trying to escape. A
roar escaped my mouth, ancient and primitive like the fierce battle cries
of the long lost mountain tribes that were among my ancestors.

 The hawk vanished behind the edge of the mountain, slowly the pulsing
rhythm in my veins subsided and I turned towards the path in front of me. I
had left the timberline behind about one hour ago and slowly even the last
crooked dwarf pines were subsiding, leaving only small patches of grass
that struggled to keep alive between sheer rock.

The path forked off and I stuck to the left, avoiding a small weather base
of the Swiss military on the mountain top to my right. There was a lot of
scree around close to the top and I had to concentrate on where I was
treading. The air was getting a lot thinner than I was used to and in the
early morning hours it was still chilling. The last 500 metres were quite
an exertion, but when I got to top of the ridge, I was repaid for
everything.

The view was just about taking away what was left of my breath. The sun had
just risen and was bathing the Alpine range around me in a soft golden
light. There was still some fog below me, floating in the valley like
delicately drawn feathers of a milky white. Further down glinting in bright
silver I could see the Ticino that was flowing down towards the Lago. My
mind was filled with peaceful tranquility that had been unknown to me in
the rush of the last 8 months.

I felt like the lost son, finally come home.

I guess at this point of the story it might be time to introduce myself. My
name is Elias Schwarz, male, 21 years old at the time these things happened
and a first year student at the Berlin college of Asian Culture & Arts.

Now you might want to know what I was doing here, all alone on the chilling
top of some Swiss mountain top, while somewhere in the distant North, on
this very Tuesday morning, the rest of my college course was brooding and
sweating over their exam sheets.

Well, the truth was, I had enough of it all.  When I had graduated from a
small high school close to the Lake Geneva, I didn't follow the rest of my
peers that headed straight for university. Instead I decided return to the
country that had been my home for the better part of my teenage years and
visit the man, that had taught me all there was to know about "toowan" --
the long spear -- and "laow" -- an equally dangerous kind of rice whiskey.

 Krew Anshun was a tall thin man in his late fifties. He lived in the hills
in the East of Laos, close to what they call the "Samriem Tongdaeng" -- the
Golden Triangle. Well, of course he always said, he lived in the high
mountains, but being Swiss, that was the one thing I did know better.  He
got known to my parents about 10 years ago when my dad still worked in the
development aid. He and my mum had been sent to Laos to help the government
in their struggle against the drug trafficking in the region.

The idea was to encourage the local villages that stopped growing poppy
with the money of Swiss subsidies.

In these days Anshun was the man behind most of the illegal opium and
whiskey smuggling in dad's district. Yet for some weird reason, they became
friends and on a long night with a lot of (illegally distilled) whiskey and
(equally illegally imported) cigars, dad conviced Anshun that he could make
even more money using the Swiss subsidies to plant potatoes and apples in
the cool climates of the hills -- and sell them with a nice profit in
Thailand, where the apples from the North were a sought delicacy.

So Anshun agreed to help my family with their project, though he continued
smuggling his whiskey into the South -- yet now in crates marked for apples
and groceries by a Swiss development agency.  As the time passed, a strange
bond of affection began to grow between Anshun, the lonely fox, more often
drunk than not, yet even more sly and quick after each glass of "laow" --
and me, the scrawny Westerner kid, too tall for my age and always with
trouble in my wake.  Looking back, I guess, it was because we were both
lonely, him by profession, that made him a respected and well-known, but
better to be avoided man in the region and me by birth, my wheat blond hair
and white skin making me a natural outcast for the neighbourhood kids.

Slowly Anshun started to take me under his wing. When I had finished the
home schooling classes with my mum, we went fishing together or he would
take me to his house in the forest.  First in his slurry thick English,
later, as I understood more and more of it, in the local dialect, he told
me stories about the Laos of his ancestors. Magic tales of the Giant Naga
snake, living the Mekong or old legends of heroes and princes of kingdoms
long forgotten. He made me memorize every one of them -- and I always
begged for more.

Then came the day, around my 13th year, when he started to teach me to
fight with the "tuwan", the long spear and favourite weapon of Phra Naraya
-- an ancient warrior legend and idol of my childhood years. Greedily I
soaked up everything he taught me and under his guidance I slowly
developed, from the srawny, shy kid I had been to a youthful lad, bursting
with energy and life.  Time flew by and I grew up happily, forgetting that
there was a world beyond the horizons of the emerald hills and magic tales
surrounding and guarding the dreams of my youth.

Yet, when I turned 17, my mum suddenly decided it was time to think about
my education. The development project had turned out to be a regional
success, things were running smoothly, but there wasn't enough money to
expand the project onto other provinces. So, to my complete disbelief and
horror, my parents decided to move back to Switzerland, so that I could
complete the 2 years of high school that I had left.

 It would be too much to describe my last weeks with Krew Anshun in the
Eastern hills, the tearful goodbyes and the painfully dull empty feeling
inside me, when I returned to the grey late autumn of Switzerland. I'm not
quite sure how I managed to survive the following winter, the strangeness
of coming "home" and finding everything weird, cold, out of place. My heart
didn't beat the same rhythm as the rushing, ever busy, ever working, ever
consuming -- just so WESTERN -- world around me.

And I don't think, I would have made it past the first year, without going
insane, if it wasn't for spring. And the mountains. With the first warm
rays of spring sun, I discovered the land of MY ancestors. And every
weekend I would spend hiking, trudging through snow fields, walking over
rocky scree or soft fragrant forest earth.

In a way, the mountains have saved me. When I bent down to taste a drink of
a brilliant mountain brook, when I stepped out of the dark of a pine forest
and came onto a bright meadow, shining golden in the midsummer light, when
I stood on the top ridge of a mountain, spreading my arms like wings and
singing my song with the wind -- those where the moments, I truly felt free
of all my bounds and these moments gave me the energy I needed to go on and
work my way through the treadmills of my high school.

So as I said, after graduation, I decided -- with the somewhat reluctant,
yet understanding blessing of my parents -- to return for some time to the
emerald hills of the "samriem tong", and 2 weeks later I sat in a plane to
Vientiane. It was Krew Anshun that picked me up at the airport with the
same old Rover jeep - meeting him again was like merging with a long missed
part of my own self.  It was also Anshun that took me into his house, as
his godson -- though now he welcomed me as a young man, not a child
anymore, not yet an adult. And thus changed the ways he taught me. The
lessons of the "tuwan" continued, as did the neverending supplies of tales
and legends, yet now I was allowed to add the tales of my ancestry into
them. And so the legends of the European Middle Ages, the tale of my
people, the Helvetians and many more were shared on long evenings with
ample supplies of rice whiskey to keep our voices smooth.

But apart from the "laow" -- the whiskey -- there were other, more
sophisticated things I was to learn.

Anshun's bussiness had blossomed over the years, still he seemed to have
even more time at hand than before. Never did I see him in a hurry or
rushing to get things done. Once I asked him about the miraculous spring of
his tranquility.  Winking he looked at me, bent down and
whispered:"Samadhi, my dear godson, and the knowledge that it is all
samsara -- the great illusion..".

And that was the day he began to teach me highest of his virtues -- samadhi
-- the meditation and the knowledge of the Eightfold Path of the Buddha.

I spent one precious year in the house of Anshun and every day of it would
be worth a new story, yet for the one I am going to tell, it is enough to
know, that the time passed too quickly and soon it was time for me to leave
for Europe once more -- and enter my new life at college. Yet this time I
felt more prepared for what was going to come. With the invincible vigor of
the youth, I felt ready for all the challenges that were to come and I was
going to conquer my own place in the world.

 So I left the green peace and isolation of Anshun's magic hills -- and
entered the grey pulsating, ever industrious concrete swamp of Berlin.  I
had chosen the German capital, because, being Swiss I already spoke German
and they had the most renowned college for studies of Asian culture.  When
I got there, the city seemed like one big construction project to me. Even
now, 13 years after the Reunion of the two Germanies, everywhere old
structures were torn down and replaced by new ones. Even throughout one of
the biggest lows of the German economy, the city seemed to radiate an aura
of upswing. New palaces of the modern elite, giant malls, and temples for
big enterprises and national or foreign politicians, were erected
everywhere and the people in the street were always in a hurry to get
somewhere important.

Normally I would have considered living in this city suicidal, but,
strengthened from my time with Anshun, I was foolish enough to think I
could survive inside that kind of environment.

I should have known better. There are no mountains in Berlin.

 Things were alright during the first few months. I had found a small place
in a condo close to the campus. The courses were interesting enough and I
was doing pretty good. At first I freaked out most of the other guys in my
courses, as I already brought a quite extensive knowledge about Asian
cultures with me and wasn't shy to show off any of it. But I was friendly
to everybody and everyone and soon I was even finding some friends among
them.

Then things went downhill very rapidly. I don't know how it happened, but
it started silently, a nagging feeling inside my head, that something was
missing. The noises of the city, the traffic, the cold business way of
people, the grey concrete and glass walls of Berlin seemed to clamp down on
me, taking my breath, suffocating me under a pillow of daily life.

I tried to continue to "function", but I guess at that point it was already
to late. I kept on leading the daily routines of my life, but when I was
sitting in my classes I had stopped listening, when I was talking to my
friends, I was smiling on the outside, but inside of me there was nothing
but emptiness. I walked through the crowded streets of Berlin -- and
surrounded by people, I felt lonelier than ever before. Everything seemed
so shallow to my, the daily rituals of consume, the chit-chat of people not
bothering to listen to each other, after one year of learning to regard
reality as illusion I found myself imprisoned in illusions but with no
deeper truths to seek.

Soon my classmates and some of the professors that had taken a liking in me
began to worry, but I resented their efforts to help and coldly I sent them
away -- only to draw myself closer into my witch circle of isolation.

That was the time, I started drinking. Not like when I was with Anshun, as
a companion of a joyful night, or as my German friends on their night
parties. Mostly I drank alone and with the same destructive force that
overcame me on the few times that I still touched the tuwan, the long
spear, that Krew Anshun had given me as a goodbye gift, when I left Laos a
million years ago.

In June I was sent once again to a appointment with the college deacon and
my tutor professor, a small, bald man in his forties, with thick eye
glasses and more worry and sympathy in his eyes than I could have beared
without hating him.  I was told that the credits I had earned for my
midterm-paper and the other assignments were so poor, that the college
could not allow me to qualify for my final exams this terms -- I had either
the choice to retake the course next October -- or drop out now. Oh, and
regretfully they also had to inform my parents about their only son's
misdemeanors. They understood that my parents were quite surprised and oh
yes, of course were very worried and that my mother was on her way to
Berlin and would arrive until the evening of the next day.

My parents. Due to a huge amount of luck or whatever you might call it,
when things go right in a really wrong way, I had been able to keep them in
a merciful state of ignorance. Until then that is.  And empty and dulled by
the streams of liquor as my heart was, at the thought of meeting the sorrow
and disappointment in the eyes of my mum, my insides turned to burning
ice. My mum, who has always tried to teach me, that the world was a
beautiful place, a place of hope and worth living in and fighting for. How
would she bear the news, that I had given up the fight?

I couldn't sleep that night, yet I didn't touch any liquor either. And by
the time the morning sun was turning the sky into a palette of blue, gold
and rose, I knew what I had to do.

 So I turned and fled.  I wrote a letter to my mum, trying to explain
things to her, telling her not to worry -- which sounded ridiculous the
moment I put it to paper -- that I was sorry, but before things could have
a chance to get better I needed some more time to think. And there was only
one place to go, one place where I could find out what I was missing
inside. I signed the letter, kissed it and taped it to the door of my room
-- then I made my way to the mountains.

And now I am here, standing on the top of the ridge, breathing freedom and
feeling alive the first time since I have left Anshun and the emerald
hills.  But still something is missing.

Confused with my own feelings, I try to listen. Listen to the breeze that
is carried to me over the Alpine range. Listen to its voice, my voice, but
I can't make out the words.  There is no fighting something you can't
name. There is no finding something you can't see. I don't know what I am
looking for, but I better go and search for it. Before it is too late and
the weight of my future is crashing down on me.

More confused than ever I make my way down to the valley. Tonight I will
rest there, and brood about the enigma inside of me -- and hope that
tomorrow will bring me an answer.