The Climb

"Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light." — John Milton, Paradise Lost

You dug the pit. A thousand small choices, one shovelful each, until the light was a coin at the top of a pit you made yourself.

Climb out. It is long. You may not see light for years. No one is coming down to carry you.

The man who sits at the bottom in self-pity does not rest. He rots. Death goes to work on whatever stops moving, and the pit becomes a grave by degrees.

The climb marks you. Torn hands. Scars you carry out. They are the reward. Not the light.

The man who claws upward for a year and dies one foot short still beat the man who sat comfortable at the bottom. The climbing remade him. The sitting rotted the other.