Creative Writing: Sidharth Siddapureddy

Sidharth Siddapureddy

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A surge of insignificance flowed through my body as I looked out upon the colossal rolling hills of the Smoky Mountains that looked like a vast, uncontrollable, green ocean in stretching infinitely all directions. It was illuminating to see how tiny I was compared to this vast, immeasurable planet.

It was early morning as the sun peeked over the mountains in the distance spreading its warmth to our chilly bus. My back was hurting as I had slept on a concrete floor last night with only a thin sleeping bag sparing me from the cold rock floor, but that went unnoticed as I looked upon the never-ending sea of green going by my window. We were all heading to a place called Clingman’s Dome as a part

Each time I made my way around a bend in the trail, there seemed to be another twist or turn way ahead in the distance. I was perspiring heavily as the sun reached its peak intensity. I was staying hydrated, but as I quickly realized, too hydrated. About halfway up the hill, my calves started cramping. I realized walking up an incline for an hour is no joke. I was already at the back of the group because others ran ahead, so determined not to be last, I continued despite severe calf pains and the necessity to empty my bladder. After about an hour of a quite intense waking, I finally neared the top. As soon as I made it to the top where the other boys in my troop were relaxing, I basically collapsed on the ground. I propped myself on the back of a log some of the other boys were sitting on and stared blankly into the greenery, trying to loosen up. There was a little spiral ramp up to a lookout called Clingman’s Dome that was apparently the highest point in the Smokies. I didn’t really care much about that so I decided to start eating. As a finished up my lunch of a skinny subway sandwich that literally consisted of lettuce, I looked around for a bathroom or a secluded place I could use the bathroom and saw nothing. I decided that my best option was to finish whatever we had to do up here and get to the bottom of the hill,

This time I wasn’t going to be at the back of the group and I speed walked most of the way down the hill, even taking off running at some points. Although I was in a great rush, my thoughts were back in the Dome. I started thinking about how vast the earth is, and how tiny the earth is to the rest of the universe. I had felt panicked before, but now I was feeling more, at peace than I had previously. Throughout my life, I had always been someone who stressed out over the smallest things and wanted everything to go right, but as I was running down a hill to get to a bathroom, I thought about how I never get any redos in life, so why keep focusing on something that is completely insignificant in the grand scheme of things. As I neared the end of the incline, my necessity to make it to the bathroom again brought me back to reality. When I finally made it to the bottom of the hill, I broke into a full sprint and bolted to the