“She poked and jabbed until it bled, but felt no pain; it might as well have been someone else’s flesh, someone else’s body. She looked up at the pali, at the trail she had ascended years before, and cursed herself for a fool. She could have stayed topside, traveled, loved, married, lived! But she came back, damn it. She thought of all she’d given up in that moment, places she couldn’t imagine and would never know, and she wept. Night fell on her sorrows.”
