One Evening in a Forest

  Thin beams of sunlight shimmer through bare maple branches. My eyes slowly blink and

absorb my environment. Gray trunks with arms reaching across the sky stand tall. The twitter

of a squirrel warning its brethren of a coyote reaches my ears. Though the snow is my bed

and the brisk air my pillow, I feel not the cold of winter nor the bite of ice, but the calm of the

forest. My nose is stiff, yet the smell of snowflakes still reaches my mind. The pads on my

feet are solid, yet I still know the snow crumbling beneath them. My mouth has not felt the

nourishment of water for hours, yet the breeze does not dry it. My mind is at peace and the

forest does not stir it.

  I feel my legs and rise. The surge of sunlight against the trees lays stripes across the forest

floor. A path winds across the stripes and I choose to follow it. My feet drive into the snow

with a crunch but my thoughts are still absorbed in the zen of the forest.

  Soon, my eyes fall upon peculiar indents in the snow. They resemble the shape of a dog’s

paws, but they are smaller than mine. The footprints branch off from the path, but I find them

intriguing so I decide to follow.

  I follow the prints in the snow, ducking under branches and leaping over logs. Daylight

begins to diminish, but still, I search. Past piles of pine shavings under leafless trees, and past

blackberry bushes with needles fearfully sharp. The prints lie alongside a frozen river

that winds through the forest. They pass a large tree with an ancient shelter constructed

beneath. But still I follow them, on and on, past trees, rivers, shelters, stones, and finally-- the

faint call of a girl’s voice echoes through the forest. I pull my gaze from the prints and realize

the sun has reached the horizon, casting the stripes into a deep orange and pink. Leaving the

footprints, I turn around and follow my path back home.