No Such Place

An essay in the form of a short story, published as a newspaper insert to Lick Creek Line, by Ron Jude (MACK, London, 2012)

When you live in a valley that runs along a north-south axis, the beginning and end of things take on a certain symmetry.  At dawn, the sun rises behind the eastern range, casting a sharp silhouette of burning light on to the western ridge.  At dusk, the eastern peaks are suddenly lit with the stark outline of the western summits.  As the Oracle says, you know that you live in a valley only when standing in shadow…