Congratulations Mountaineer!

It is known that at high altitudes some people hallucinate things.  Sometimes, they'll hallucinate stuff like sexy cartoon animals, or weirdly elaborate cakes.  Sometimes they'll hallucinate loved ones reaching out to them, calling them to come and visit the great beyond, where they can be together forever.

Today, while climbing through the beautiful and deadly Himalayas, you're going to hallucinate a rope bridge.

"Check it out," you'll shout to your wife.  "Bridge!"

She'll stare at you like you're crazy, and shout "Wait, don't, it's a - " but before she can get to the overlong phrase, "Mountain mirage," you'll already have leapt on to the rope bridge with both feet and, having hit nothing but air, you'll begin your rapid and certain descent into a crevasse, where you'll break both your legs and die of blood loss in a matter of minutes.

If it's any solace, your case will be used for years to come as a cautionary tale, effectively educating thousands of climbers in proper mountain-safety, and lending credency to a seemingly fake phenomena.  Also, it'll free your wife from a loveless marriage that was figuratively sucking the life out of her, which is good, because no one should have to live without love.

Congratulations Mountaineer!

Congratulations Series of Blinking Lights!

When he approaches you, he won't really know what he's looking at at first.  It'll only be after a few minutes of intent peering that he'll surmise, based on your apparent unreachability and your constant appearance of movement, matched with your seemingly set distance from him, you are, in fact love.

With this in mind, he'll pursue you.  At first, it will be an easy gentle kind of pursuit, a means by which he can guide his attempted exodus from the desert, but after a few days of it the pursuit will shift tones.  He'll stop sleeping, only breaking occasionally for a few minutes at a time to let his legs rest before he begins again.  He'll eat only what he finds on the path, never bothering to gather food.  He'll mumble about love constantly under his breath, as if all of his problems would simply vanish if he ever reached you.

He won't.  He'll die in that desert after a week of straight pursuit.  He'll die alone and unfulfilled.  In his final moments he'll wonder if you will come to him as he lays dying, since he can no longer follow your trail.  But you, an optical illusion caused by a series congenital condition, exacerbated by dehydration and stress, will be incapable of comforting him in his final moments, however much you might want to, because your very existence, both as a symbol of unattainable love and as a figment of someone's imagination, depends on him staying alive.

Congratulations Series of Blinking Lights!