A Nice Walk – Josiah Adler

February 23, 2026

A man sits on a small stone at the ledge of a cliff. And below him is a vast emptiness at the bottom of which is a pine and fir forest stretching over the lands and around an oval lake and stopping at far mountains and heading forwards more in valleys and under the falling sun. He wears a brown shirt buttoned at the collar twice and the sleeves torn at the biceps. The man wears black sunglasses and the rims are silver and the handles over his ears also of silver.

The mountains far are an entire range in themselves, they lengthen off over the horizon and their peaks are not of ice or snow but of gravel and stone. Between them are shallow rivers and the odd trail and woodland. Above them is only clouds and it is all golden of the sun. The sun sets below the clouds.
The man’s elbows are on his knees and the fingers together interlocked as ball, his hair light brown and short, twirling slightly at his forehead and curled to stick out behind his neck. His pants are beige denim widening as they reach the ankles and the boots are of artificial fabric. They are brown most ways and the detailing, tip and sole, are black and of rubber. It is held closed around his legs by strings attached to rings which twirl.

Behind him is a bag and upon it rested a gun, a dark gray assault rifle. Before the barrel is a triangle heading up as sight and before it a thicker handle striped with ridges and lines around. Before that is a curved cartridge holding thirty rounds. And above it on the other side of the weapon is a rised aim which is half of a triangle of metal, hollow in the middle. And before the rounds is a grip spattered with bumps and covered in rubber, and before them all a stock empty in the middle and surrounded by metal again. And at the very end of the stock is rubber.

The man reaches down between his legs and raises a small cardboard box red at the top and white in the middle with black text and he opens it and takes out an orange, white cigarette. He puts it to his mouth and looks up at the ranges and forestry and reached down again for a silver lighter which he flicks open and spins quick to light and he lights his smoke. He snaps it closed again and tosses it over his shoulder to land in the grass and he takes the cig between two fingers and pulls it, and it sticks to his lip and he winces and pulls and it frees and he blows out.

>/\_/\_/\<

A young man black of hair and white of clothes steps up a trail. Around him the firs and pines and below it golden light. His pants are dark black and his skin paler than the granite pebbles on which he steps. And he puffs as he raises his leg and steps over a larger stone and jumps up, and he grabs both straps of his backpack and looks back and ahead again and continues his trek. And he picks up, on his walk, a large branch he fashions as a cane, and he looks around and his face is tensed and he smacks at flies and buzzards and scratches his nose.

He steps up the trail and comes to a turn and he stands at its ledge and looks down where there is a hundred-odd feet of dropping over stones ending in steep grass and moss which barrel into the woodery, and behind him the other man says hi. He turns and waves and smiles, he says hi back. The other man steps down the trail and he stands still, what are you hiking about, he asks.

I’m heading up the trail?

Did I ask that?

A- uh-

What are you hiking about? For?

Because- he looks down at his feet and over to the mountains and back to the man, I wanted to see the mountains, I’ve heard this is a great spot.

Stop lying.

I- excuse me?

You’re lying.

Okay. Sure what if I have other reasons?

Tell me.

No, and he scoffs and crosses his hands, one holding the cane.
Stop being a coward and tell me.

Why the hell should I tell you?

Because I want to know.

You’ll listen?

I’ll be how it is.

What’s that mean.

It means- He puts both palms together ahead of his face and harshly taps his fingers against his forehead repeatedly and drops them and grunts and laughs. It means you tell me. I don’t care- Just- just fucking tell me.

What’s- up with- uh. You?

What’s up with me is that you won’t tell me.

Jesus. I was feeling a little sad. Calm down.

A little sad?

Yeah.

The fuck’s that mean.

Well- I had a bad moment with someone- who I consider important to me.

Could you be more fucking vague?

Well- fuck you.

I don’t care what your self-defense says. What, he walks closer and puts his finger up and hand straight pointed at the paler man, what do you say.

I say- this is weird.

Shut the fuck up.

I-

Shut up.

Wh-

If you’re not going to say anything worthwhile then don’t fucking speak.

I-

All my fucking life, he puts all fingers faintly on his own chest, all my life people have been talking and how often do they say things which actually matter? How often do they say things which I listen to and want to hear? How often do I hear something and don’t have to gaslight myself to believe that this is “connection?” Every, he points again at the other and walks closer, fucking day, and he presses his finger on the other’s chest.

The other swallows and pulls back and the man’s finger remains on his chest.

People have this expectation that they’re human you see, he lowers both hands limp to his sides, but that’s a lie. Humanism is the greatest lie told by humans anywhere. What a crying child thinks alone in his room or what a homeless man votes for has no single say in life for anyone. People are born into this world either relevant or irrelevant. And as long as the idea lasts that someone is relevant, then that length they do nothing.

You know what, he says, fuck you.

I- what are-

No. Shut up.

The paler man grabs his chest tighter and the suns rays still shine over it all, and the greenery is fruitful of green and the insects and animals below it run amuck.

I am so fucking tired of this all. I hate speaking. I force myself to speak because otherwise nothing would happen. I don’t even speak anymore. I just see and feel what other people think and feel and I say that. Not that I play into their roles mind you. This isn’t some social mask monologue you bitch. I live myself and I am full of everything, yet when people see it they do not care about the entire massive structure before them. They take the parts they care about, and that’s it.

Okay?

I ran away from home, I saved myself all for fucking this? For people like you?

I- the hell did I do?

You exist.

[-\/-]

I don’t think you understand what loneliness really is, child.

Child? I’m fucking yo-

No you don’t. People say ‘oh I’ve been lonely all my life’ and what do they have to prove it? They’re “shy” or they’re “anxious” but you don’t really know what it does to a person do you? You don’t know what a mind does if nothing exists besides itself for its existence. You think because you got bullied in school that you’re suddenly some empathetic savior? I don’t want you to feel what I feel if it means this. You don’t see what I do.

I’m supposed to be who I am. And be this amazing? And just pretend that other people are anything comparable? Oh sure I’m a fucking narcissist. Sure I don’t feel things properly by your fucking standards.

Everyone-

I don’t care that you feel bad. When I felt bad as a kid that got funneled into self-hatred which just calcified so that I can’t feel things anymore, he kneels infront of the paler man, I feel nothing when I talk with most people. I feel nothing when I look someone in the eyes. I used to flirt with twinks all the fucking time online and what did that fucking get me? I got what I went in there for. I was told how proud they are of me. I was told how amazing I am, but what did that get me? Fucking nothing. I felt better for a couple hours and then nothing again.

I came to a realization recently. And that is, he wags his finger and looks up at the other and grins and raises his eyebrows, no movement in his eyes, that I can’t change anything that’s happened to me. And if that’s true. Then why the fuck do I even exist anymore? I’m not who I was before I ran away, before I “saved myself.” I have all the parts left inside myself which are, in fact the same. But none of that matters.

I go around and people noticed sure. They saw that I ran away and understood how I was hurting, to some extent. But people live in this world where everything’s relative to them. Nothing is unless they know or presume it is. They don’t know the lengths I went to for liberty.

He steps closer with one leg and puts his hands together around eachother’s wrists, liberty is the greatest thing in the world. Because its the simple fact that nothing matters in the field bestown to you. I want people to see the same world I see. And I want them to suffer the ways I’ve suffered. Maybe its because I want them to see me, and see as I do, after it. Or maybe I’m just a raging sadist? Maybe I like destroying things because it brings me joy? Maybe I simply like being cold to others in pain and telling them to suffer better, because I enjoy watching their suffering?

I know they can’t meet me at my level, so what’s the point otherwise? There’s no greater moral system for me to work in. There’s no Jesus up there to tell me what to do. Even if there was, if he wanted a say he’d do something to show it. But he doesn’t, because he’s either not there, he doesn’t care, or he’s scared. And people, oh people love to actually- in general. This isn’t solely about the god thing. They love to say that someone was ‘jealous’ or ‘scared’ or whatever. Maybe someone didn’t give them what they wanted because they were ‘evil’. You heard of that one? ‘oh you don’t care about my pity party? You’re fucking evil.’ It’s pathetic. Because the truth in most of these scenarios is that the person just didn’t care about you.

Nothing changes that. You can dig into their minds and explain that ‘oh they were hurt as a kid that’s why they got trouble with closeness’ but shit. If you let all that fester for as long as- fucking everyone has. It comes to a point where the hurt child’s gone man. There’s no sad crying boy there anymore. There’s no sad girl who was ignored by his daddy and used by friends. There’s just the protective systems they made. And nothing else. If you truly understand how most people function. That there’s no ‘deeper’ side to them, there’s simply them. And what they pretend exists. Or shit- some don’t even pretend.

People aren’t evil or good. They don’t matter is the answer to any question posed. If I were forced to pretend that someone passing me on the street matters as much as I do, matters as much as my actual friends do. Because I do have them, he taps one finger on the other’s knee, that’s not asking for pity that’s explaining that I know how this human stuff works.

I’m not saying I’d kill people because they don’t matter. I’m saying that if I were the head of a firing squad, I’d go for a smoke and take a nice walk. I’d see the city and sights. I’d do what I want, because I can’t stop what’s coming to them. Fuck it- no matter why they were killed. Would the fact they wasn’t change anything? In the greater cycle of the world, there’s nothing that remains. There’s no single person alive all that time. There’s no greater observer, no conglomeration of eyes in the sky, there’s what people wrote down and pictured, and there’s what people centuries later think about it.

I don’t care about explaining this to you. It gives me nothing. I feel no greater things because you understand something about me. I have met maybe- three people. In my entire life who I’d talk to and feel, for a time mind you, actually a part of it. But people can’t match that all the time. I don’t care if they can’t. I’m not about to fold because someone else likes doing something not pertaining to me.

Yeah I want someone to see me. Yes I’m tired. Yes I’m lashing out at everyone. Yes I wouldn’t pull the trigger on a group of innocents. No I wouldn’t walk off. Shit- maybe I would. I just feel scared that you wouldn’t care about this if I did. I’d feel humiliated again. I don’t wanna feel humiliated again. But that’s a separate issue you see. Because if I don’t want to be humiliated, but people aren’t capable of giving me what I want, then that’s just a byproduct.