The Devil is in The Details

My crisp, blue hiking boots steadily carry me up the hill. A light mist and subtle darkness have descended upon the land. The vividly grey moon smiles down on every living thing in these enchanting woods. Blankets of dazzling stars cover me tightly, sending a warm, loving, fuzzy feeling down my spine.

With a bit of a hop, I propel myself forward an extra-large step and crunch pine needles beneath my boots. Their breaking releases a pungent aroma in the air. The smell travels through my nasal passages to my taste buds as pine fills me to my core. The flowers let their velvet petals open to hug the glowing moon and say, “Thank you for all that you do!”

I let my knees gradually bend and dip down to take a slight sniff of the white petaled beauty. I inhale a sweet honey scent from the budding blossom and begin to smile. I hear the clear siren call of a solitary wolf. “Where are you, my friends?” she sings into the cloudless, dark violet nocturnal sky full of sparkling stars.

Energetic critters scurry around in response to her summons. I continue to climb my way to my water-proof, double-lined camouflage tent waiting in a mid-sized, secluded clearing. Finally, I see the flickering flames of a soft fire and I know I have arrived at my oasis.

I sit down upon a sturdy log near the fire and place my shiny, brand-new boots on a nearby boulder as a temporary foot rest of relief. I gaze up with wonder once again at the brilliant stars and radiant moon letting their gentle rays fall on me like a waterfall.

I close my eyes, beginning to drift in and out of consciousness. Suddenly, I’m back at the base of the hill. What happened? I start to panic. This isn’t right. Something went wrong.

The smile of the forest has a crooked twist to it. The once soft pine needles under a forgiving moon have now become lifeless, razor-edged swords stabbing the void of the midnight sky. It’s the same walk I just took, but somehow, it’s different…

My boots that aren’t quite broken in yet tear at the damp earth and my sweat-moistened feet inside of them. Hard plastic rips into the worm-filled soil. The dull grey moon is bare, staring at me with naked eyes while simultaneously blinding mine.

The space around me is dark and uncertain, shrouded in fog. Shadows of tangled tree branches distort themselves into hands and arms as if to take me with their jagged fingernails, never to release me.

With an awkward hop that lurches my body in a diagonal motion, my foot lands on an old, dead pine needle pile atop the soggy dirt and makes an audible crunch. The scent of pine begins to force itself into my nostrils and shimmy down my throat to strangle my tongue. My stomach begins to bubble in dramatic protest.

I remember the white-petaled flower I had smelled before and begin to think that perhaps olfactory redemption will be brought. My sore knees creak as I painfully squat down to a small bush of foliage and blankly look at a small white petal with a brown spot. Its flaw bites at my eyes, making them sting. I take a bottomless breath only to be repulsed by a sickly-sweet honey flavor on my tongue. A queasy grin arduously stretches itself onto my face.

Then I hear the familiar howl of a predatory wolf. She cries into the night, desperate, perhaps afraid. Her loud moans fill the stale, vacant air and ricochet off the bare trees. She is a hollow sound in an empty evening. Prey madly dash to their hidden woodland homes in anxious response to her lonesome clamor.

I hang on to my very last thread of hope knowing that my one-person tent is hidden somewhere nearby, surrounded by the fallen, pointy twigs of massive trees and secretive bushes with an adequate clearing and a decent enough fire going. Finally, I see the fierce flames whipping back and forth against the smoldering embers that signal to me that I have returned to my refuge. Rough bark from the dying log claws desperately at my delicate palms and an unforgivingly hard boulder becomes a slightly-too-high foot rest for my weary confusion.

I stare into the face of a man who has never seen the light of day, surrounded by his chorus of those which cannot compete with the sun. He gives me his meager light in an attempt for compensation. I scrunch my eyes closed and beg for the relief of unconsciousness.