Chapter Fifteen — The Entity of Height

The road climbed into the mountains in sharp turns.

I drove slowly.

On one side rose a wall of rock, and on the other side the slope dropped to the valley.

At every turn a different view opened before me.

The town I had left grew distant beneath me. The houses became smaller, the roads narrowed to thin lines, and the fields looked like parts of a large blanket in different shades of green.

Now and then I let my gaze rest on the road before me.

The view was beautiful, but the road demanded attention.

At one of the turns a sign appeared pointing to a lookout point.

I turned toward it and stopped in a small dirt area.

There was a low fence, a few benches, and a sign presenting the names of the mountains around us.

I got out of the car and approached the fence.

The wind was stronger than I expected.

I looked down.

The road I had climbed looked now like a winding thread between the rocks.

The river I had crossed in the morning stretched along the valley like a thin strip of silver.

For a moment I felt the feeling that height always arouses in me.

Wonder at the view.

And beside it a small fear, reminding me how far the ground is.

⸻

I tried to imagine Height as an entity I could converse with.

In my imagination appeared a woman standing near the edge of the cliff.

The wind moved her hair, but she looked entirely calm.

She did not hold the fence.

"Are you not afraid?" I asked.

"Of what?"

"Of falling."

She looked down and then looked back at me.

"I know where I stand."

"That is not always enough. Sometimes people fall even when they think they know."

"True," she said. "That is why one must be careful."

I looked at her.

"I thought you would say there is no reason to fear."

"Why would I say such a thing?"

"Because you are Height."

"Precisely because of that, I know what can happen when one does not respect it."

I smiled.

I liked that she did not try to persuade me to come closer to the edge.

⸻

"What is it in you that attracts people so much?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"People climb mountains for hours. They drive winding roads, stop at lookout points, stand in wind and cold. And all that to reach a higher place."

"And you? Why did you come up here?"

I looked again at the valley.

"To see the view."

"So perhaps that is the answer."

"But what is so special about the view from above?"

"What do you see now that you did not see when you were below?"

I looked at the road.

I could see the river, the road, and the town within the same view.

In the morning, when I drove between the houses, I saw mainly the street before me.

Now I could understand how everything connects.

"I see the wide picture," I said.

"And what do you feel?"

"That the place is bigger than I thought. And also that I am small within it."

"And does that bother you?"

"No. Actually there is something pleasant in it."

I thought about how sometimes we are so busy with what happens around us that we forget there is a whole world beyond the street, the work, and our worries.

Height did not solve anything.

But it reminded me that there are many more things I do not see when I am below.

⸻

"There is also something deceptive in your view," I said.

"Such as?"

"From above everything looks small. The houses, the cars, the people. Even the roads that seemed narrow and frightening to me on the way here look simple now."

"And did they really become simpler?"

"No. If I have to drive them again, I will still have to be careful at every turn."

"So what changed?"

"The place from which I look."

"Exactly."

I pondered that.

Sometimes people say we should move away from our problems in order to see that they are not so big.

But not every problem becomes small when looked at from afar.

Loss does not become easier because we see it as part of life.

Pain does not disappear either when we understand that there are people in the world who hurt more.

"So what is actually useful in the view from above?" I asked.

"Perhaps it allows you to see additional things, without canceling what you feel."

"For example?"

"You can see that the hard road you climbed is only a small part of the way. But when you drive it again, you will still have to cope with every turn."

"Meaning, understanding the big picture does not exempt me from the details."

"True."

I thought about maps.

A map of a country can show us where we are traveling.

But to find a specific address, we need an entirely different map.

Both describe the same place.

Each helps us see something else.

⸻

The wind strengthened.

I laid a hand on the fence.

"Why does my heart beat fast when I stand here?" I asked.

"Do you really need me to answer that?"

I laughed.

"Apparently not. I am standing in a high place, and my body warns me."

"And does that warning disturb you from enjoying the view?"

"A little. But it also makes me careful."

I remembered the Entity of Fear I met in my imagination during a flight.

The tired guard with the bundle of keys.

"I already met someone who would agree with you," I said.

"Who?"

"Fear. He claimed his role is to protect me, even if sometimes he exaggerates."

"And do you think he is exaggerating now?"

I looked beyond the fence.

"No. I think this time he is right."

I moved a little away from the edge.

I did not want to test how close I could stand.

The view was just as beautiful two steps back.

"You know," I said, "there are people who feel a need to reach right to the edge."

"And there are people who prefer to stay in a safer place."

"I probably belong to the second kind."

"And does that take anything away from the view?"

I looked again at the valley.

"No."

⸻

I returned to the car and went on climbing.

The road became narrower, and the turns sharper.

After a while I reached the summit.

Beside the road stood a small café, with a few tables facing the view.

I stopped and ordered coffee.

I sat beside a large window.

On one side I could see the valley from which I had climbed.

On the other side spread another valley, with a road winding to a town I did not know.

"So this is the summit," I said to the Entity of Height, who still accompanied me in my imagination.

"Of this mountain," she replied.

I smiled.

"There is always a higher mountain, right?"

"Almost always."

"It reminds me of something in life."

"What?"

"The desire to reach a certain achievement. Sometimes we work for years to reach it, and when we finally succeed, we are already thinking about the next thing."

"And is that bad?"

"Not necessarily. The desire to advance can be a good thing. But sometimes we forget to enjoy what we have already achieved."

I looked at the cup of coffee.

"I know that feeling. To finish something big, rejoice for a moment, and almost at once begin to think what else needs to be done."

"So why not stay here a little?"

"Here?"

"Yes. Drink the coffee. Look at the view. You do not have to start descending at once."

I smiled.

She was right.

I was in no hurry to get anywhere.

⸻

"I have a question," I said after a while. "Why do we call the good periods in our lives peaks?"

"Why do you think?"

"Because we imagine success as an ascent. The higher we reached, the more we succeeded."

"And did every good period in your life feel like a peak?"

I thought about that.

"No. Sometimes precisely the quiet periods were the most beautiful."

"So why do you not call them peaks too?"

"Perhaps because there was nothing in them that could be measured."

I looked at the valley.

There are periods in life we remember thanks to a great achievement.

Work we succeeded in, a goal we attained, a dream we fulfilled.

But there are also years we remember because of family meals, long conversations, simple trips, and moments that did not seem especially important while they happened.

"Perhaps not every peak is in a high place," I said.

"Perhaps."

"And sometimes we understand that we were in a beautiful period only after it ends."

"Does that happen to you a lot?"

"More than I would like."

⸻

"And one cannot stay up here forever," I said.

"Why would you want to?"

"Because it is beautiful here."

"And below there are beautiful things too."

"True. But when we reach a summit, it is sometimes hard to think about the descent."

"Perhaps because you treat descent as failure."

I thought about that.

In life we are used to speaking of progress as movement upward.

To succeed more.

To earn more.

To reach higher.

But not every descent is a failure.

Sometimes we choose to slow down.

Sometimes we leave something that no longer suits us.

And sometimes we simply end one period and begin another.

"There are also descents one does not choose," I said.

"True."

"And they can hurt."

"Certainly."

"So I do not want to think that every descent is a good thing."

"You do not have to."

I liked that she did not try to persuade me to see an advantage in everything.

Sometimes a descent is only a descent.

And the question is how one continues from it.

⸻

I finished the coffee and left the café.

The air outside was cooler.

I stood another moment and looked at the two valleys.

One I already knew from the road I had traveled.

The other was still new to me.

"Interesting," I said, "to get here I had to climb, but to continue I must descend."

"True."

"So the summit is not the end of the road."

"Not if you want to continue."

I remembered the cave I had visited not long ago.

There I descended deep into the earth, to a place the light almost did not reach.

Now I stood high above the valley, in a place where the sun and the wind were entirely exposed.

Two places so different.

And in both I found myself thinking about the way we look at life.

"Do you know Depth?" I asked Height.

She smiled.

"You met it, after all. What do you think?"

"That you are very different."

"And in what are you alike?"

I looked at the road winding down.

"That you both make me see things I could not see from the place where I stood before."

⸻

I got into the car and began to descend.

The road wound between the rocks, turn after turn.

The town below me grew larger.

The houses became houses again.

The cars no longer looked like small dots.

I could once more distinguish windows, trees, and people walking along the streets.

When I reached the plain, I felt relief.

Not because Height had disappointed me.

I loved the view, the air, and the possibility of seeing the whole valley.

But I was glad to return to a place where I could walk without thinking about the distance from the ground.

I stopped at a traffic light at the town's entrance.

Before me a man crossed the road with shopping bags in his hands.

A woman stood at a bus stop.

Someone opened the door of a small shop.

Ordinary life, as it looks up close.

I thought of the view I had seen from the summit.

From above, all these people were too small for me to notice them.

And now they were people again, with faces, voices, and places they wanted to reach.

When the light changed to green, I drove on.

Height gave me the wide picture.

But I was glad to return to the details within it.

Continue to Chapter Sixteen: The Entity of Waiting

© 2026 Nurit Rozenblat. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed without the author's prior written permission.