30 Days of Prose: Day 4: Woodland Memory

Woodland Memory

The breeze touched my cheek today, offering for the first time the promise of the coming winter. Breathing deep, chilled barbs in my lungs, I began to dream of my time in the woods.

If color and scent are memory, then surely, there can be no stronger recollection than that a stiff Autumn wind brings. Yellows, reds, greens, and browns; shades of cyclical death painted on a life that is far too willing.

Yet among the decay, there is a boundless life that waits for us all to be still. I think to step without breaking every branch or leaf in my fated footfalls, but somehow, this makes me louder; intention not yielding deception.

So, I give in to the woodland wishes, retrieving a fallen bough as I draw my blade. The scrape of metal on bark, somehow, fits the thicket's ebbing landscape.

As the scrapes drone on they hide me, blending me into the wood. To my left, I see the haphazard pile of stones where you'd never lay, if I'd done what I should.