‘It’s true that there is a grassy acreage in Pennsylvania within which one might find a place outside of time. ‘The Everhill,’ as it’s called, dips at a perfect angle for childlike rolling but, due to some quirk in physics, seems to catch rolling bodies at its center, spinning them in a loose, almost gravitational, grip until something from the outside interrupts their perpetual rotation, at which point they continue to the bottom of the hill. While spinning this way, a human (or animal, and don’t ask how this has been discovered) will not age.
Mia Long holds the known record for a spin at nearly three years. She came upon ‘The Everhill’ alone and failed to find a ‘spotter’ before attempting the roll. A study of her cells has confirmed this little mortality cheat and her memoir details the lived experience of anti-aging at ‘The Everhill.’
Tortuous, in a word.’
It is almost suffocating, the spin at the center of the hill, and time seems to slow such that I worry my spotter, who is a man I met only in the last few minutes, will forget about me or, for some reason or another, choose not to break me from the slopes grip. It isn’t a smooth roll, neither slow nor fast, and I see the summit and the foot in split-second turns, both seeming very close and very very distant. When I reach out my limbs, which goes against much of the advice in these forums, the ground pummels me and still I spin.
There is no breaking oneself out of this.
Ages seem to pass and I fight a feeling in my stomach that threatens to blossom into nausea. Would my vomit escape this? Or propel me out? I try to remember what I’ve read but am jolted, suddenly, by a sharp force on my ribs, the toe of a man’s foot. I jettison forward, out of the spin, and feel myself approaching the bottom again.
I garble a ‘thank you’ and make my merry way to the parking lot, shoulder over shoulder and pockets full of grass.
-traveler
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