The Hill

It was a punishment.  He had finally come to understand that now, though it had taken what seemed like many years to come to that conclusion.  Or it may have been that he had come to that conclusion many times in the past, but forgotten it.  His memories were dim, patchy, cloudy.  He wasn't even sure if he had really been there for years, or if it was only seconds.  He just knew he was there now.

He leant forward some more, the rope cutting into his shoulder, his sweaty hands slippery on it.  The rope seemed alive, trying to twist and turn from his grip, but at the same time rubbing, abrading, slicing the palms of his hands, the skin of his shoulder and the flesh on his back.

Still he strained, yearning for that moment when the burden, a short distance behind him, but connected through the rope like some bizarre umbilical cord, would edge minutely forward, and just for a second the tension in the rope would reduce.  These brief milli-seconds were all the rest he got, the only minor respite he received.  He yearned for it, yet at the same time dreaded it, for that slackening of the rope meant his shoulder would slam into it just afterwards, as he fell slightly forward.

It was hot, hot as it always was.  Perspiration flowed freely down his face, getting in his eyes, stinging, clouding his vision.  He licked at the salty liquid, just to feel something wetting his parched tongue.  He longed to pause for just a moment, to wipe away the sweat, to rest for a while, but he knew he could not.  It was not allowed.

He was getting nowhere, so changed positions.  Keeping the pressure on the rope, he turned, so he was pulling the cord into his chest, staring along its short length to his burden.  The rope, a thick, scratch hemp cord at his hands, slowly thinned as it went away from him, shrinking until it was a fine, glittering thread which finally was tied around his burden.

His burden.  He hated it, yet he loved it.  He knew he only had to get it to the top, just a few centimetres more, and he would be finished.  He glared at it, willing the tiny sphere to move.  Its colour sickened him, but slowly, ever so slowly, he managed to drag it further.  It left a minute, semicircular furrow behind it, which disappeared in the distance down the slope.

And then, suddenly, it jerked forward again.  He stumbled, and cried out in despair as the rope slipped from his hands.  The burden would slide down the hill, as it had so many times before, and he would have to start again.  But no, not this time.  The sphere was steady.  It was still.  The ground around it was flat.  He had made it!  He had made it to the top!

He fell to the ground, exhausted.  He wanted to lie there forever, but what seemed like only a moment later, he heard a voice above him.

"Stand up.  Now."

He rose, painfully to his feet.  He looked in vain for the thing that spoke to him, but there was no-one.  To his horror, though, he saw the hill, somehow, inexplicably, wrongly rising in front of him.  His burden was behind, waiting, seeming to glow the same malevolent colour it always did.

The voice spoke again.

"This is Hell.  You are being punished.  You must transport the object to the top of the hill.  If you do not, your punishment will be worse.  Begin."

And, as the voice spoke, suddenly his memories came back to him.  He knew why he was here.  He knew why he was being punished.  He knew why this punishment was apt.

He sank to his knees, but only to grasp the rope.  He faced the object, the small, green sphere, and knew.  This was his punishment.  He was Ed Hulver, and this was the Little Pea Pull.