A WALK IN THE WOODS

Soft and still. The ground beneath me was studded with the white of snow. The air was painted with a heavy fog that blinded me, its chill slid around my neck, strangling me. The frozen air of winter bit at me. The wind seeped through the trees vunerability, caressing the exposed skin that wasn’t covered up by my many layers of clothing. I delved deeper into the unknown as the path behind me began to fade, consumed by darkness. The sun had died and the moon was reborn, glimmering in the sheet of black that was the sky, in all its glory. Its light pierced through the trees weakness, illuminating the unfamiliar.

Enslaved by the breath of winter, as its chill slipped up my spine and into my limbs; numbing them. My body was now a puppet, stuttering under the command of my puppeteer. The leaves whispered in the wind, sharing a thousand secrets between them. The orchestra of the winter’s night rang like a drone through the woods, conducted by the wind, my hair danced to its eerily soothing symphony. The snow was tinged with the sparkle of the stars, glistening in the moonlight. My ears tingled as the cold breeze brushed his icy hand against my now icicled nose and cheeks, drawing me to engulf myself in the warmth of my coat. I burrowed my face into my scarf that hung limply off my neck; like a small rabbit escaping from the cold of the winter retreating to the comfort of its home and its mother’s bosom. I dug my hands into my pockets moving them around in an attempt to restore warmth to my dead fingers, as if to try and grasp the little heat left in my pockets. I ventured further into the silent white wood with only the glow of the moon to warm and guide me.

I watched as my breath transformed into a frosty cloud of smoke. It stuck out like a sore thumb in the midst of the darkness that surrounded me, for a while it lingered in the air and I gazed as it slowly grew faint and dissipated into the night. As I edged onwards, I spotted in the far distance a small dark silhouette. I struggled forward lifting my feet that had become heavy from the melted snow that managed to slip into my boots, to reveal a small mouse. Glancing at the poor creature I pondered the family of small mice it may have left behind, or the family of mice that had one less member. Future prospects crushed; just like the crunch of my feet crushing against the velvety blanket of white beneath me. Not able to handle the force of the freezing winter, its body had befriended death and decay, now manifest within it having sucked the life out of it. Now all that was left was a mere bundle of fur lying lifeless. It lay without a trace of movement, completely still. Drowning in a sea of snow. A white wintery grave.

I stood back, after placing a flower that now had diamonds for petals, after being enchanted by winter’s spell, onto the mound of snow that was covering up the mouse within. In the loud silence I watched, a solitary flower placed in the vast white nothingness, the only thing left to attach it to those it left behind. Now forgotten and lost as the world around it continues to thrive.