TERMINALLY PHIL

A JOURNEY TO THE TOP OF MAD MOOSE MOUNTAIN

Not well-equipped with courage, Phil slowly boarded the bus heading up the hill. Phil was terminally ill.

He’d had enough of the whole medical unnatural lunacy, he was out to discover what else might set him free. His whole family were concerned as Phil went hunting for more wildly speculative hypothetical lore… for what seemed like a self-delusional final cure.

Phil believed, on good authority, with research being supported historically, at the top of the mountain was something solely extraordinary.

As Phil continued uphill, he sat contemplating how such natural curative properties were organically instilled.

They call it “THE PLANT WITH NO NAME” — though even that, in itself, seems like a name, just the same.

PW COLLIER / A.I. ASSISTED IMAGE

The unique terrains energies slowly shifting upwards until annually erupting at the topmost peak… overflowing a spontaneous life-giving leak.

It would last for only a moment, that miraculous restorative bestowment.

Effusing a regenerating force from one to another living source.

This knowledge wasn’t lost or hidden, but available straight off the shelf. Phil wondered, where were the secret societies or hordes of others like himself?

Midnight was approaching, when the flower’s power would appear, and he was the only one here — alone and so remote — small, hunched, with a satchel and wind-blown coat.

It was all appropriately and spiritually calling out to Phil, as his life was near ending in the evening mountain chill.

Continuous climbing began taking its toll, but still Phil was approaching his ultimate goal.

He would not, could not, stop. Before him lay the mist-shrouded peak, near the very top, crowned by a glow from a jagged outcrop.

That’s where a flower knew just what to do as it grew. A delicate plant rose, most slender, bathed in a heart-pulsing, palpable, paranormal energy… with newly forming and twisting tendrils, iridescent petals, and surrounded by protective wildly growing stinging nettles.

His own spark of life began fading quicker. It would take only one solitary touch to reclaim all his lost youth and vigor — after long fought bitter struggles with illness and rigor.

Phil was hobbled and still ached with tremendous pain. Only seconds remained, as Phil moved to claim that rejuvenating floral flame.

He envisioned many others, before him, having experienced the same, then discovering how the mountain got its inane but apt name.

Those nettles were his final complaint — just the same.

PW COLLIER / A.I. ASSISTED IMAGE

The moose was really attracted to that indigo bluish hue and the faint chartreuse too. Those rare flowers were what it loved eating the most… much better than grass or wild oats, and rich in native antioxidants, untainted by agrochemical residues or recombinant fructose.

Phil suffered serious and profuse abuse from that mad mountain moose.

© 2025 Peter W. Collier