From Many Years Ago

This is a piece I wrote sixteen years ago.  I just found it a few months back, and decided I should post it.  I'm not sure why, but when have I ever needed a valid reason to do goofy stuff?

There is an old legend about a man who was very much in love with a woman. He told her of his love, and asked her feelings about him. She told him that she liked him, hut she felt that his love was not really true. He promised her his undying love and devotion, and told her that he would do whatever it would take to show her his love.

"I would move the mountains for you", he told her one day.

"If you really love me," she said, pointing to the largest mountain around, you will move that mountain to the other side of the road."

The man looked at the mountain and looked again at his love. He wasn't sure she was serious until she turned without another word and walked away. He decided to show her of his love, and went home immediately to get a shovel. He returned to the mountain a few hours later, and began to move the rocks that had fallen to the mountain's base. He would pick up a large rock, and carry it across the road, laying it to rest at the future sight of this mountain. Several of the rocks were far too big to pick up, and he knew he should go home to get a sledgehammer to break them into smaller rocks that he could carry.

He returned to the mountain a few hours later with his sledgehammer, and began to break up the larger rocks. He worked all through, the night without even sitting down. As he took his first break, he looked toward the mountain's new home, and could not even tell he had done any work.  After a short rest, he began to work even harder. After all, if he was to complete this work, he would have to give it everything he had.  He worked until late in the evening before exhaustion forced him to sit down again. As he looked across the road toward the mountain's new home, he could barely see anything had changed.

He decided that he would work from the time the sun came up until the time the sun went down every day until he had moved the entire mountain.  Each day, he would leave his house an hour before sunrise to go to work on the mountain. He would work non-stop until it was too dark to see in the evening. Within a couple of weeks, he left his house for good, and slept next to the mountain because he was too exhausted to walk back and forth.  After a month of working, he began to see a small hill where the mountain was being reassembled. The excitement made him work even harder.

"The next time she walks this way," he thought, "she will see what I am doing, and she will not doubt my love."

Every day, he would work so hard. And each day, he would hope she would walk by to see what he had done. Each time he would see someone coming ever the horizon, his heart was gladdened. Each time it turned out to be someone else, however, and his disappointment soon began to sting. Still he worked as hard as his body would let him.  From first daylight to after dark, he would carry rocks and dirt across the road to add it to the mound he had made.

Soon after the young man had made the promise to the young lady, she had forgotten his words. She had not really been interested in him at all, and she thought her words to him had told him of her feelings. She went on with her life, and soon was being seen in town with another young man whom she did like. As she would spend her days in the house, helping her mother with the chores, the young man was moving the mountain for her. As the days went on, though his body grew more and more tired, his love for her only grew deeper. The harder he worked, the more he loved her. The more he loved her, the harder he worked.

The years went by, and her mountain was being moved piece by piece. The man worked every day, all year long, in the hot summer, and the cold winter. Being outside all the time, his young body aged, and his skin grew hard and tough. Still, he labored every day, always giving it all he had.  Each night, when it was too dark to see, he would collapse with exhaustion, and not wake until the next morning.

Word got around that there was a man moving a mountain, and people became interested. Some people knew that it was being moved because of love. Others simply thought this man must be crazy.  He was arrested twice for the work he was doing. After all, the mountain belonged to everyone. What right did he have to move it?  He would spend a day or two in jail, hoping his love would come to see him.  Maybe she would tell him to stop, and profess her love for him.  But she didn’t come.

When he got out of jail, he went right back to the mountain to continue his work. People lost interest in the man, and soon no one would even pay attention anymore. As more years passed, the strain began to take a toll on the man. He became sick, and could not get better. But no matter how bad he felt, he would work from sunup to sundown, every day.  Each night, he would collapse. Each morning, he would hope that his love would come see him that day. He knew however, that he would work until he died to prove his love.

The man collapsed one night, forty years after he started the work for his love.  He never woke up. Next to the man was a note that simply read 'For my love". By now, the young lady had married, and moved to another town. The people buried the man next to the spot where he had completed his work. For his love, he had moved the entire mountain.  Finally, he was laid to rest next to his love's new mountain.

Several months after his death, the lady and her husband came back to visit the town. As they reached the edge of town, she noticed the mountain on the other side of the road. It was only then that she remembered the promise of the young man, made so many years before.   As she approached the base of the mountain, she read the board that marked the man's tomb.  Simple like the note he had left, it read, "It was for his love."  Legend has it, the lady died later that night of a broken heart.

She was buried in a small town several miles away. Even after his life, the man was left alone. The name of the man has long been forgotten, as has the name of the lady. But the legend of this mountain continues to be told from generation to generation.

There are still some people alive today that swear they have seen pictures from when the mountain was on the other side of the road.  Though its name is not recorded on maps, the locals know it as lonely mountain. Strange sounds can be heard there just after sunset every night. They say one of the sounds is the man groaning as he collapses after a long day. Another is the sound of the lady’s heart breaking, realizing she lost her one chance at true love.