Around me, there is only dark brown and green.
I widen my eyes to find more light, but the stars are behind grey masses in the sky. There is only a familiar sound, telling me to follow it slowly.
It crunches beneath my shoes. It crackles when I find larger leaves and my foot buckles over small, deformed rocks.
I steadily trod on the dusty pathway until my eyes adjust and I see a familiar branch greeting me welcome home. It waves in the summer air, dangling fragile dead leaves as charms before me.
I look only at my feet now, careful not to make contact with a boulder on the pathway’s bend. My shoulders contract when I see a spider turning under my foot.
My legs lift in a gallop as I scurry unwary of further obstacles towards my safe haven. It might only have been a dead leaf or a twig, but the eye deceives the mind and the mind deceives the body into convulsions of fear. That resting beat returns when the light finds my eyes.
A neighbour’s clambering in the kitchen reminds me that I am not alone in this wilderness.
My hands feel for the key that will bring me shelter. It is rough and cool on my fingers and slots in perfectly in the darkness. My body has memorized where to find the keyhole, it seems.
The door knocks open, the underside not connected to the top.
I feel it is too loud and that I am waking someone, but close it hastily behind me, knocking wood on wood once more.
Words & Things 