Where the Sun Goes

‘Why does the compass always fail at times like this?’ she grumbled, the one from New Zealand.

There was a path. No way to tell which way it led. The summit was surrounded only by sky and clouds. Retracing their steps might have been simple enough. But they had run in every direction, taking photographs. Now neither could tell from which side they had climbed. The world around them was all the same. The same endless, beautiful repetition of cloud and air.

‘You don’t need a compass to know which way is which. The sun rises in the east, crosses the northern sky and sets in the west,’ said the one from Australia, puffing up.

‘Right. The sun’s there, that must be north. The map says we need to head east to go down. If we’re facing north, that means turn right. We go this way.’ She wouldn’t be outdone.

Where they came from, the sun always travelled the northern sky. Knowledge grows under familiar sky, and they believed theirs was a universal truth.

Two fools talking. This is Kilimanjaro, a mountain near the equator, where snow meets the sun.

Here the sun moves across the southern sky in October. They walk southward, believing they are headed north.

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