La Cascade de Luc

We parked the car in dappled sunlight and we stepped out into it. The sun was warm but winter air still floated down from the snow-capped mountains. We could hear the waterfall whispering to us through the trees. He lent me his jacket.

I followed him up the path into the forest, stepping uncertainly on stones slippery from leaves leftover from autumn. The buds above were yet to open; the sky was blue through the bare branches. To our left was a rocky stream over which water tumbled, fast and white. Around us trees and stones were covered in thick green moss. 

The crescendo of the falling water reached its zenith and there the waterfall was, looming vast before us. We scrambled up the mossy rocks to its plunge pool. We could barely hear our voices above the sound. Waves crashing, trees in a tempest, the telly on the blink that we couldn't turn off. Our faces were anointed with its fine mist, which settled on my camera lens like drops of dew. The cascade was infinite, a great white force to be reckoned with. White water fell from the heavens and smashed into wet black rocks. 

Across the pool there was an iron crucifix, minimal yet ornate. Two white letters adorned it, either side. M.B. It leant against a large rock. He told me that beneath it were the remains of a man who, whilst attempting to climb the cliff face, happened upon a loose boulder which fell and crushed him. I imagined his bones beneath it, shattered like dropped chalk. 

On the trees around us other initials were carved, some alone, some in couples encircled by jagged hearts. He picked up a rock and tried to scratch out our own but his patience was met by the tree's tough bark and found wanting. Instead I took some photos of us there. Our moment immortalised, in a different manner. I took one of his sunlit iris.

Back in the car we rose and fell on mountain passes, sunlight flashing through the dirty windows. I drank in the beauty of the mountains moving around us, of the trees flying past us. Back on the motorway I scrolled through the photos. Out of the screen he looked at me with his sunlit eye, larger than life. In the light his iris was moss green, and brown like the leaf covered ground. His lashes cast shadows like the branches of trees. It was like looking into a forest, so deep I could lose myself in it forever.