I take a knee to tighten the laces on my shoes. My face down, I murmur, “He’s got a drone over the parking lot. Keep your eyes peeled. He’s sending me to the trail.” I stand, cinching the straps of my backpack tighter, and start walking toward Confederate Hall. I resist the urge to look at the drone, but I hear the whirring sound fade as I walk.

Behind Confederate Hall is a concrete patio at the foot of the mountain, which rises like a giant fog-shrouded mound. A handful of people, many in workout gear, are either on the trail that runs around the mountain’s base or are heading to the walk-up trail, which goes straight up the slope of granite. The path looks like the surface of the moon might look if it were free of dust and broken rock, with added clumps of pine and oak and scrub trees. A sign welcomes me to the park and informs me that various things including littering, painting, pets, fires, and wheelchairs are prohibited. I envision someone trying to push a grandma in a wheelchair up Stone Mountain, then accidentally letting go and sending the wheelchair careening down the path, mowing down the power walkers and the two neo-Confederates on the patio trying to hand out pamphlets saying White Lives Matter. I actually turn to look behind me, as if an old lady in a wheelchair has just bounced down the rocks, and that’s when I see Caesar, in shorts and a skullcap, doing calf stretches down on the patio. He doesn’t look up at me, but I know he’s seen me. I take the opportunity to check the sky overhead but see no sign of the drone. I turn away and face the mountain, then start climbing.

The path at this point is a wide expanse of weather-worn stone with a few shallow crevices to navigate. A fine mist needles my face and hands, moisture beading on the outside of my windbreaker. There’s a couple ahead of me, a Black man and a White woman, walking uphill hand in hand. I can see two others up ahead, each on his or her own, and then everything else vanishes behind an insubstantial wall of mist that seems to move with me. Sound is muffled—the couple ahead of me are speaking to each other, but I can’t make out their words, and my own footsteps sound like I’m hearing them through a radio with the volume turned way down.

I pass a dais on my right with five flags on tall poles. Four are emblems of the Confederate States of America, including the famous Dixie flag or Southern cross. The fifth is the American flag. A man stands at the base of the dais, staring up at the flags. I walk on and leave him behind me in the fog.