Nature

Reaching the picnic benches that sat exactly half way up the small mountain, Carmen came to a stop and took a few sips from her water bottle.

“This is my life now. I have climbed this hill and now I will die upon it,” her friend Shannon said, throwing herself on the floor and placing her arm over her eyes dramatically.

“Shut up. We’ve only been hiking for twenty minutes.”

“I feel like I’ve run a marathon... some light exercise you said.”

“We’re hiking, not climbing Mount Everest,” Carmen argued, “If you spent less time bitching about it and more time focusing on your surroundings, you might actually enjoy it. You said that you wanted to start exercising more… this is a perfect place to start.”

“I don’t think so,” Shannon stated, pushing herself to her feet and tipping some of her water over her head, “Look, my favourite exercise is a cross between a lunge and a crunch… I call it lunch.”

Chuckling, Carmen led Shannon along a trail that would take them to the top and blocked out her best friends whining in favour of listening to the birds singing in the trees. Emerging through the trees at the mountains peak, Carmen smiled as she took in the scene in front of her and turned back to see whether Shannon was still alive.

“You okay?” Carmen asked, laughing as Shannon glared at her and drained her water bottle.

“Just peachy, great… fucking fantastic,” Shannon replied, resting her hands on her knees and taking a few deep breaths, “I swear to god the next time you so much as mention exercise or hiking, I’m going to hit you.”

“Will you stop complaining for two seconds and just look around,” Carmen snapped, motioning to the scenery that surrounded them, “There’s no Wi-Fi out here, but I can promise that you will find a better connection… live life for a while. Breath in the fresh air, listen to the birds and view nature through your eyes rather than a screen.”

“It is kind of beautiful,” Shannon mumbled, moving to stand next to Carmen and snapping a picture of them both, “I guess I can understand why you love coming up here so much.”

“I do love coming up here, but to be honest I come up here to escape life down there,” Carmen explained, pointing back the way they had just come, “Up here, I don’t have to worry about where the next rent payment is coming from or whether my brother is settling into his new school okay… it’s my little piece of freedom away from the chaos.”

For the next hour, the girls sat at the top of the hill and watched the world around them. It was never easy to take herself away from the chaos that was her life, but it felt good to not have to worry for a while and having her best friend along for the adventure was just the icing on the cake.