Lilly shuffled in front of Jay along the thin dirt track that led up the mountain. Ideally they’d walk side by side, but of course no real trail was that wide.
Neither had said much so far. It wasn’t impossible—they were close enough to hear each other over the leaves rustling above or crunching underneath, even without turning—but the trail had never really lent itself to conversation. Crass human language felt dead when surrounded by living prose. Most people’s words would simply fizzle into nothing, drowned out by the brazen refrain of the mountains.
Lilly was nonetheless determined to try anyway. “What do you think art is for?”
A few moments passed in silence as the mountains barely visible beyond the trees inched ever so slowly in parallax. “The utter destruction of the mind and soul,” Jay finally said.
Lilly frowned, even though Jay wouldn’t be able to see her face. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt to have a real conversation with you every once in a while.”
“Real conversation consists of more than lofty topics,” he retorted. “You seem to abhor small talk.”
Lilly couldn’t help rolling her eyes to herself. He could never resist these sorts of cerebral topics, so why all the melodrama?
“Yes. I know. You completely devalue all philosophy and any form of intellectual thought. Abstraction is an abomination designed to distract us from what is real.”
“Straw man,” he said softly.
“Whatever. Here’s a better question, then: why do you make art? Like, why do you draw?”
The two plodded on for a few moments before Lilly looked at Jay over her shoulder. He shrugged nonchalantly in response, and Lilly returned her focus to the trail.
“It’s fun. I’ve just always liked it.”
“What about it do you like?”
“I’m good at it.”
“No, you’re good at it because you like it.”
This elicited a dry chuckle from Jay. “Fair.”
Lilly looked at the autumn sky above them. Blue and cloudless, save for a few lonely cirrus wisps. She could only gaze for a few seconds, though, before she had to stare at the ground again. She liked hiking, but nobody ever talked about the true nature of it—trying to to trip.
“I guess it’s just fun,” Jay said after a while. “It’s nice to see a blank page become something pretty or cool or both. And the tactile feel is satisfying. I would never do digital drawing because it’d be no fun.”
“Hot take. So then the purpose of art is to have fun?”
“Yep. Worrying about anything else is kind of silly. What matters is how the person making it feels about it. If it refreshes them, it’s art. If it drains them, it’s… something. I don’t know what it’d be, but it’s not good.”
“Interesting. So bad art is worthwhile as long as it’s fun to make?”
“The only bad art is art that sucks to make.”
Lilly stepped along in silent thought. Something about his words didn’t line up with what she knew about him. She’d ask him about it later.
“So, what about you?” Jay asked. “Why do you keep typing away at a keyboard like a madman instead of offering yourself up to the attention economy like any sane first-world citizen?”
“You use an awful lot of lofty words for someone that doesn’t like ‘lofty topics’.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Lilly turned to glare at him, only to be rewarded with a smirk. “I write because I have to.”
“Wow. So you do it even if it isn’t fun?”
Lilly sighed. “Yeah, sometimes it’s not. But not all good things in life are easy.”
“I didn’t say anything about easy. Something can be hard but fun.”
“Semantics. Not all good things in life are fun, either.”
“Sounds like you need to find a different hobby.”
“I would if I—” Lilly cut herself short as she almost tripped over a rock. “Careful.”
Jay snickered to himself. “So, the purpose of all art is to fulfill your vague need to write?”
Lilly let out an exasperated sigh. “No, that’s just why I write.”
Overhead, a bird twittered. Lilly stopped to look at it for a moment. Jay paused with her.
“Art matters because it fulfills people’s needs,” Lilly finished. She started walking again, and Jay followed.
“What kind of stuff do people need?”
“Catharsis. And to think. And just to escape sometimes, I guess.”
“Well. We’ve kind of gotten away from the original question. Nobody’s holding you at gunpoint to make you write. You can do whatever you want.”
“Yeah, but the right thing to do is write, because good art is meaningful. If I can write, then I should.”
The trees began to become more short and stubby. Overgrown bushes, really. Most of their leaves had fallen off, giving clearer glimpses of the mountains around them.
“Bullcrap,” Jay said incredulously. “You don’t write because you think you should. You said it yourself, you write because ‘art is meaningful’. You do it because you want to feel like you matter. If you really wanted to help people that much, you could just study to be a therapist.”
Lilly’s face twisted a little, but she said nothing. At length she turned her head halfway towards Jay, giving him a sidelong look. “You don’t really draw to have fun. Why go through all the effort to submit your drawings for competitions and upload them on social media?”
“Why not? The hard part was making the drawing, might as well let others see it.”
“No, if you think drawing is fun, then the hard part is showing it to others.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause they start having opinions on it. Judging it. People start thinking of you based on what you’re able to make.”
Lilly began tapping her temple with her finger. “I’ll bet that’s it, isn’t it? That’s what you want. For people to see you as your art. If you make good art, people will like you.”
“Way to oversimplify.”
“Well, I’m not completely wrong, am I?”
“Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
Moments later, Jay and Lilly burst forth from the shrubby trees onto the bald on top of the mountain. All around them lay countryside painted in golden light. Hawks flew in the valley under them, searching for prey in some forgotten cranny of the topography. The sight was an excuse for purple prose, if such a thing could ever be excused. Maybe Lilly would write some later.
“What a silly conversation,” Lilly said with a sigh. “I wanted to talk about something profound, and we ended up just talking about ourselves.”
Jay replied by coming up alongside her. Out here on the bald, it didn’t really matter if you walked on the trail or not. It was all just grass, anyway.
They continued upward onto the bald, slowly rising to meet the sky. Around them the land undulated, a squiggly line on a heart monitor. They curved softly, showing their age but not dulling their beauty.
The pair reached the top and surveyed the land silently. Many moments later, Jay nudged Lilly’s shoulder with a fist. “Is that such a bad thing?”
“Hmmm? Oh.”
Lilly looked at the glory around her and sighed again, finally smiling. “I guess not.”