Struggle woke up early every Sunday, long before morning, to ride out on her bicycle across the uneven terrain. The wind stung at her legs, whipping dark, unruly hair across her face. Faster and faster she would go until the wheels blurred into mist. The gully of warped rocks offered no set road. But she knew, swerving and leaning into the whirring pile of metal. Routes appeared between the parting mounds. The rocks could be forgiving if one knew how to watch them. They rose and fell like waves, soft as waves, or crushing like them sometimes. Struggle felt only fearless joy as he turned sharp curves, going almost horizontal with speed. Others had their churches, their sermons, their Sunday mass; this was her day of worship too.

Eventually, the land became too difficult to navigate, and she hopped off his bike. On foot, she felt the ground rise up unyieldingly to meet her. The soles of her worn shoes gripped the arches of stone; every muscle was sent to work. With one hand she guided his bicycle while the other pushed up against the rock for balance. The land was harsh, a collector of heat and death. But most people, they were weak and soft, unable and misplaced in their love for adventure and beauty.

The waves of rock grew progressively larger. Struggle leaned her bike against a wall of stone and continued on hands and knees. She climbed up and over and small hills rolled toward her. The rock continued pooling in, threatening to drown whoever approached. The girl kept glancing as her large structured hands to make sure she was still separate from the earth. She stopped after a few minutes, grabbing the thermos from her bag. The cool water cascaded down her throat. Beads of sweat dropped from her face and trickled into the crags below.

“Drink up,” she said, shaking droplets from her dampened hair.

The girl continued climbing until she had found a suitable place to rest. She wedged herself between two large formations of rocks. The sun had not yet climbed high enough, and she was entrenched in black as he lay in the large indentation. Struggle imagined this place to be his tomb. A person should not be buried, she thought, but merely die on warmed rock, nothing but sky above, and impenetrable hardness underneath. Her heart beat slowed and deepened like ritual drums. She felt like an ancient king, hidden and bronzed, melding with the earth. Even the birds and ants would not find her here.

She had found a dead bird once, shrouded in rock shadow. The delicate thing was broken, as if it had never been alive. Struggle had thought that if she breathed into once, the bird might fly off again. It was a light thing, a little light thing that the earth could not bear to lift off again.

“Little bird,” Struggle whispered. She lifted an outstretched hand to it, tracing a slow arc across the sky and obscuring the creature from view. She finally closed her hand, capturing the eagle. She placed it upon his chest. It fluttered against her heart and then released itself into the day again.

The sun was moving, encroaching upon her slowly and bathing her left hand with warmth. She grated her fingers on the rock, feeling the rough surface and ancient scars. Struggle suddenly felt incredibly weak. If she could only take an axe and lay her full weight into the swing perhaps she could split the earth, opening a dark chasm into its beating heart-core. The girl turned her face scratching it against the rock’s coarse surface. She could taste the grainy salt of rock on her tongue. Before her eyes, the sky and earth blinded her with color, reducing her view to form and color. Look at the scene abstracted down to its simple components, Struggle wanted to cry.

The sun was overhead now. The figure on the ground was lit with a dry heat. She was on fire, burning and unable to move, trapped between two walls of stone. The striated rock had turned obstacle to man. The muscles on her arms, legs and back pressed into the rock. Next to it, she no longer looked hardened and capable. She was all smoothness, dark halo of soft curls resting on the solid surface. She closed her eyes, and she could still see the sun burning through her lids, imprinting itself on her retina. The sun marked its territory on her body, and the child offered herself to the fire. The hair on her arms and legs caught first. Her heart almost burst from the power of the flames. She would burn until the rocks turned soft, swallowing her into some dark, safe place within the earth.

Struggle opened her eyes.