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Soliloquy #1
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Soliliquy
- Christopher R. Moore, Editor




	I climbed to the top of a mountain this past weekend.  I do not 
believe it was a named peak, at least certainly not in the order of Shasta or 
Washington or "Sawtooth".  Why was it not deemed important or 
substantial or popular enough to be christened in the fashion of its nearest 
neighbors?  It did, after all, have a U.S. Coast and Geologic Survey 
marker atop the highest boulder, a dull bronze jewel celebrating man's 
partial domination of the upward direction.  This piece of foreign metal 
proclaimed that we have been here, we can walk up high mountains with 
hammers and bits of cement and then do trigonometric calculations.  The 
date on the bronze read "1928".  Had the forest explorers lost interest in 
this peak? just one of thousands of others, giving a panorama of an 
equivalent 360 degrees to that of any other peak?  Or was it perhaps that 
since mountains don't move all that much, since they tend to stay out of 
the rat race, a new marker was superfluous?  I could not, to the chagrin of 
my cartographic side, match the queer serial number (43N58TF-W?) on 
the marker to the strange notation on my topographic map in order to 
check my theory.  Maybe this peak wasn't on the map?-the squiggly 
lines representing altitude changes seemed to swirl about in my 
approximate vicinity, but weren't they parallel there, not round-ish?  The 
shades of green turned to brown, to white as the two-dimensions stretched 
out of the paper to emulate the deific Third.  A paper tear between one 
particular representation of ridgeline may have been the root of some of 
the difficulties.  Mercator sure had it easy back then - only half the world 
to deal with, or approximately that.
	Up top, on a small, craggy plateau of about ten feet square, I sat, in 
the exact center.  The center, for me, after putting away my maps and 
confusion, was the spot equidistantly distant from the edges.  The edges, 
save for the one by which I made my semi-daring ascent, were in the 
persuadingly vertical alignment.  I came to realize that one small stumble 
would be my last small stumble - an awfully large stumble would follow


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