Small Adventures

The woods proved too hushed for comfort, almost as if it were holding its breath in expectation of some terrible event that would occur if I went forward, so after I had meandered for a while out of earshot of the house, visited with some mammoth slugs, and sheared off the side of a rotted log while descending to the ground on my boot heels, I turned around and left the forest in order to keep to the road. For a good ways back it went, winding around a dumpster, intersected by another soggy trail of twin ruts. I stopped to snap a few photos -- the mossy boots dangling from the NO HUNTING signpost, the delicate and unidentified pink blossoms on the edge of the gravel; I also paused to inform a cheeky robin that I was only passing and he could go on scrabbling in the mud because I wasn't about to stop him, no sir. Tipping his head so as to better read my countenance, he considered my assurance and decided I had an untrustworthy sort of face, therefore taking off would be the better option. I did not feel affronted by his swift flight.

Eventually the gravel gave way to plain dirt: two wide wheel tracks divided by a strip of green grass and hedged on either side by trees, grasses, and underbrush. As I rounded the curve I came face to face with a garishly coloured dumpster, and stopped to confront it. "Seriously. The road does not end with you, does it? Because that's just wrong." Fortunately, the tracks continued, though they were slightly less defined. I debated whether or not it was safe to go on, as I could not determine whether this was public road or now private property, and settled on continuing my walk, as I was inclined to do something outside of my routine reaction. (For the record, I try to break my quotidian habits in at least one small way each day. It proves remarkably helpful in the discovery of adventures; it also causes a tremendous amount of trouble if you happen to be too impulsive, as I am discovering. However, at least the negative aspects of the situation are countered by the fact that this is indeed an adventure, albeit a walking, talking, multiple-people-in-multiple-states-with-multiple-agendas adventure. It's okay. It will work out.)

((Maybe.))

After walking underneath an arch of drooping evergreen boughs, to which I bowed deeply as I passed beneath them, I left the wood and came into a clearing filled with oddly cut boulders and piles of curiously rusted tools. To my left a black lagoon languished in its ditch, along with an ancient red exercise ball which floated at one end, still and silent in its corner, and despite my practically minded tendencies I discovered that tiny shivers were lizarding their way up and down my sweater-draped spine. There was no current to set it to motion. Overhead a plane rumbled, low enough to ride beneath the clouds and in plain view; the ground trembled with the vibration. Moving slowly through the clearing, still on the path, I found myself staring at an old wooden cross, painted white long ago and now faded, and a shriveled wreath hanging beside it. The stones... what if they were ancient pillars set up for sacrifice, and what would a murder look like if it was committed in such a setting, and where would the body be hidden, and is that really a wheelbarrow over there under that tarp or is it a layout for instruments of macabre torture, laid out in the Spanish inquisition and carried forward in time for rituals, and is there a murderer hiding behind that massive stack of planting pots...?

Reluctantly I departed from the clearing of stones and continued along the path, which bent to the left and led straight past a pile of neatly stacked firewood, straight to a lovely little house with a great cement patio, by which stood a table spread with potted plants. A curious little rock sat on the wood pile, looking like a proper stone age sculpture, complete with rough-hewn nose and mouth and eyes. "Hello," I murmured in greeting, curling my hand around the cool surface of its curves.

The house itself, half-draped in ivy, sat like a little haven, set apart from the looming trees by a moat-like circle of sun. I went up to the patio and knocked on the door, laughing as I did so at the four little coasters set up against the glass (kangeroo, koala, dragon, boar...). Shigure at the door would have been too absurd for my ordinary life; instead of a kimono-clad writer ready to show off an Australian version of the zodiac, a lady's voice rang from the main room: "Come around to the front."

I went, popped myself straight into her kitchen, and fumbled to explain my random appearance on her patio. "Actually, I didn't even know someone lived back here, and I was walking, and I didn't realize you owned this property or that it even was private property...." Her eyes were blue, and dignity and curiosity mingled on her face along with a suitable air of reserve. She introduced herself, I admired the stone column behind the stove ("My husband does some stonework," she explained.), and she offered me a cookie. "They're made with coconut oil, and chocolate chips and walnuts. I hope you can eat walnuts." "Oh yes, I love nuts." Not exactly true in general, but it worked for the situation, and it wasn't an outright falsehood either. I do enjoy nuts in some -- not all -- foods, and... that is not another tangent. No. Anyway, I excused myself, cookie in hand, and kept on walking down the lane and into a dark hall of greenery.

It would be lovely, of course, if I had walked down that enchanting green lane and straight into an enchanted world inhabited by a crazy man in a box and a dancing mentalist and a prince with a kingdom-sized library, but instead I came back out on the main road and set my sights for home. The mountains were hidden behind heavy cloud cover, but I looked towards them anyway as I passed by the pine trees and hopped up onto the porch.