It was a small dark line, and it looked seemingly like a roof going just a little above the ground. I jumped up with my possessions and hurried there.

It was indeed a roof: a shabby wooden shed stood in a rectangular deepening. I went down the stairs carved in the white marble-like rock, and entered through the door, overhung by a wooden board with an inscription saying “Dead Fish”.

Inside it was life-savingly cool and eye-pleasingly dark. Tables stood in three rows, a single dim lamp stood somewhere in a distant corner. Quiet indeterminable music played on the radio. There were three customers, one at a table in each row: a gentleman with a newspaper, a guy in a hat, and a man in a hood.

I dropped on a stool right next to the entrance. All three men turned to me with amused looks.

“Sorry. Don't mind me, I just... I'm okay.” I said while catching my breath.

They turned back to their tables. I sat for a bit and then approached the counter.

“Can I have something to eat?” I asked the man at the counter. The man shrugged.

“What do you want?”

“Well, I mean, food, something to eat. And water!”

The man shrugged again.

“We don't have much.”

“Well, what do you have?”

The man shrugged the third time.

“Beer.”

“That's it?”

“Yep.”

“And water?”

“Only beer.”

This time I shrugged.

“Okay, and something edible?”

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The man turned away and looked at shelves, hanging in the dark behind him. He looked there for a long while, his forehead wrinkling intensively until he said,

“We have some chips.”

“Chips? That's it?”

“Yep.”

For a minute I stood there pondering. Beer in this heat was a bad idea, and chips as a meal were even worse. The alternative, however, was that I'd go on wandering thirsty and hungry.

“Well, are there any places around here with clear water and human food?”

The man once again shrugged.

“There ain't much.”

"On the mountain,” a voice from behind announced. I turned around – a man in a hood was sitting at a table right next to the counter smacking chips. He was looking somewhere past me, in the dark. It was quite obvious (to me, at least), what mountain he was talking about. I hesitated with my answer but decided eventually to use this opportunity.

“On that,” I said, carefully approaching him. “Could you somehow, um... could you tell me, where to find that mountain?”

The man looked at me with tired and faded eyes.

“Why, sure. You find it here.”

“Where – here?”

“Here. In the White.” He turned his eyes away again and sipped his beer. I sat down on a chair across his table.

“Yeah, but could you be a little more specific about it? I don't seem to have seen any big mountains in immediate proximity. Is it, maybe, located in that ridge that is seen on the horizon?”

The man made several more sips and put his glass down with a faint and somewhat menacing smug.

“That's the catch, fella. To find it you have to see it. To see it you have to find it.”

“I don't think I get it.”

“Nobody does. Not even those who've been here a long time, let alone those who've just landed here. It's a tricky part that you solve on your own.”

He threw the glass over and drained the remaining beer in two gulps. He then smacked the glass down onto the table, burped, and turned his body to get off the chair.

“Have you solved it?” I asked him. He stopped his motion and gawped at me with a discouragingly sad look. Without a response, he then stood up and moved to the exit tottering from side to side.

"Dow, give the poor fella a proper dinner,” he said huskily without turning around, “and pour him some water. On my bill.”

One of the chairs fell down with a bump pushed by his clumsily swaying hand. He did not pay attention and left through the door.

I was still looking in that direction, when Dow brought me a plate of fish soup, a bowl of bread, and a glass of water, and then went on to pick up the chair. I emptied the plate and then killed the bread very quickly. The soup was good, the bread was crisp and the water tasted good.

Having eaten I pushed the dishes away and rested a little. I took out the picture of the mountain – in the dim light of the shop, it looked like some kind of underwater volcano somewhere deep in the sea. I once again asked myself the bothersome question: have I really not made a mistake?

This all looked extremely wrong. There was nothing here, there was nobody here, at least nobody of help. I did not know, what I was supposed to do. And I could not go back. This was my one and only shot, and I felt like I was already missing it.

I asked Dow the count-man if I could use the shop's bathroom. He allowed me in, and I washed my face and hands (should've done it before, I thought, but whatever), and my clothes. Upon returning to the counter I asked Dow how much I owed to the man in the hood.

“Forty dollars,” he said.

“Fo... fucking what?!”

The counterman looked at me with a face expressing the same question.

“Sorry. Got it,” I remedied. “Forty dollars. Fuck me.”

I left the shop. I felt fed, watered, washed, but a little bit fooled and... well, lost.

It was around 5 p.m. now. The sun was nearing the west, but it was still hot, air shimmering over the ground in the distance. I was lost, very much lost, but I had to pick a direction. Silhouettes of mountains were looming on all sides, the ones on the North, however, were lit by direct light and were the most visible. I chose to go there.