Upon A Mountainside

Talk about a blast from the past. I was going through some OLD papers, and I ran across this "story" written by me and my old partner in crime, Bob O'Connell. This had to be written around 1973 and we were fourteen or fifteen years old, terrorizing the streets of Chicago. Fueled by Uriah Heep, blacklight posters, fat joints of Mexican pot rolled in wheat papers, J.R.R. Tolkien, and torrents of adolescent hormones, this still showed promise.

Despite overwhelming temptation, I have not changed one word. The adjectives, grammar, punctuation and format are exactly as we wrote them over 40 years ago. To my extreme satisfaction, Bob and I are still good friends, touching base frequently on Facebook. Back in the day, we used this piece to impress the girls that we would pick up at Ford City shopping mall, outside the Orange Julius shop, and take back to my house for make out sessions. Bob always seemed to get farther around the bases than I did. And for some reason, that still seems to hold true today.

So here it is for what it is. And if any of you ladies out there are duly impressed, please feel free to send me or Bob a message.

Upon A Mountainside

By Stephen J. Dunn and Robert O'Connell

I sat upon a mountainside
On a morning of black ages long forgotten,
And pondered of the coming war.
The dark forest beneath our city
Menacingly cast its terrible shadows toward the realm of the fire master, Thorgon.
The ominous threat was unavoidable.
I sat upon a mountainside and pondered of our fate.
We, the last of a great race of mighty warriors,
Wondered of the destiny which beset Thorgon
In his Tower of Light.
Thorgon, the one who held the only thread of hope
Against the coming darkness,
Sat alone, meditating those dark times.
The realm of Thorgon, like a grain of sand in a vast desert
Held the only answer of triumph over the multitude
Of evil servants of the Dark Lord
Who sought control over the entire world.
Fire! An uncontrollable raging mass of pure flame and fury
To which none could withstand.
This was the Golendrir - the great force of goodness
Over the powers of darkness.
A very few hours later, the dark army prepared for battle.
Soon after they began their horrible march, all fled from before them,
They were reeking of evil and hatred, malice and destruction.
The chaos of the black sea swept around the Tower of Light,
The Tower of Goodness and Peace.
Dark clouds hung overhead.
The mighty war began.
The numbers of the dark army were far beyond our resistance.
We were falling, all hope was quickly slipping from our grasp.
All looked lost. The outcome of the war lay now with Thorgon -
Ruler of the Golendrir.
Suddenly, a huge mass of tremendous sheer white flame rose
From far under the mountain -
The Mountain of Palgadron, the Mountain of Flame,
The Mountain of the land of Lorhandell, the Mountain of Thorgon,
Lord of the Golendrir.
The masses of the dark army burned under the terror of the coming death.
Death, the final and absolute misery, spread throughout the Enemy's host.
At last good reigned again over all the lands.
Peace filled every heart.
All this I saw long ago upon a mountainside,
And my heart was full of joy and I was at peace with the world
Now that I knew of the light that shone everywhere,
And a tear of gladness rolled down my cheek
Upon a mountainside, long, long ago.