I Swear I Stepped on a Mountain

There once was a mountain, bigger and taller than any other mountain that has ever been or ever will be, and this mountain had a name, he was called Ryan.

Now, Ryan did not start out tall. Indeed, in the beginning he was only as tall as every other mountain, which in mountain terms is to say not very tall. But Ryan hungered to be taller, he hungered in fact to be the tallest of any mountain anywhere. To be so tall that he could reach the very stars in the heavens. 

And so everyday he stretched and he strained in his rocky bed, and everyday he grew just a few centimeters taller. After a while even the other mountains who, like Ryan, wanted to be taller stopped growing, contenting themselves with their new found altitudes.

I am tall enough, they would think. Why grow any farther?

Finally Ryan was the tallest of all the mountains, yet still he kept going.  Gripped by his obsession to pursue ever loftier heights up and up and up he went.  Until at last Ryan stretched so high that his base could no longer support his and with a mighty CRACK!  the stone giant came tumbling and crumbling down to ruin. Boulders the size of sky scrapers ricocheting about like a stampede.

When the dust settled All that was left of Ryan was a single stone no bigger than the size of a fingernail. From there Ryan slipped into depression and spent his days weeping over all that he had lost and dreaming of the time when he was the tallest mountain in the world.  Many an eon did he pass in this way though to him it seemed like the blink of an eye.

One day there happened to be a runner.  This runner had run a couple marathons but now he was reading a whole bunch of stories about how you shouldn't actually wear shoes when you run, you should run barefoot.  Now this runner wasn't very bright, and thought to himself 'Huh, maybe I should try running barefoot.'

And off he went, running barefoot in the streets.  Streets which, while they appeared quite smooth from a distance, and felt smooth when you were wearing shoes, were in reality so coarse as to be only a step above gravel.

Ignoring the pitiful complaints of his poor abused feets, the runner continued until that black and accursed day when his path crossed that of Ryan.

Ryan was stone drunk that day, sprawled face up in the gutter of the inner city Baltimore street. Deciding to take it easy that day since he feet were still getting used to going barefoot the runner decided he would go to the local park and come back.  So he set off never thinking that he was about to have an unpleasant encounter with a mountain.

The run had been going fine until that fateful step, it was a bit cold and wet true, and his feet were giving him their usual complaints, but it was nothing out of the ordinary.  When suddenly he landed on Ryan.

Ryan, awaking with a start from his drunken stupor was caught entirely off guard by the sudden assault of the foot above him.  In his confusion he lashed out.  Pouring all his bitter depression, his bile, burning woe of centuries into the strike he bit deep into the half hardened flesh, giving cry to a tiny shriek as he smote his vengeance.

When the runner got home he knew immediately that something was amiss.  Examining his foot he found the wound, a bruise already forming, looking as if his foot had been struck by some tortured soul.

No mere pebble, nor stick did this he knew.  This is the work of some hidden might which will cause he to walk with a slight limp for at least the next couple of days.