Out of the Woods
He imagines his phone sitting on the familiar dresser, its white cable linking it to the socket from which it garners life. He wishes it wasn’t there. If only he hadn’t left it too late to charge it. If only he’d remembered to bring it with him. But isn’t that the way of things, the taking for granted what is habitually there - in this case his mobile snuggled deep in his jacket pocket. Until it isn’t of course…
Nearly halfway along his route when he remembered it, his right hand had patted the breast pocket of his coat as if that might disprove his forgetfulness. The compulsion to check was both instinctive and inevitable. For a moment he had wondered if finding it safe about his person wouldn’t have been more disturbing, giving the lie to what he had recalled. Or thought he had forgotten.
One way or another there was a betrayal in the air.
There being no benefit in retracing his steps, he had pushed on, deciding after the merest pause to continue to the end of the lake and then, by traversing the skimpy footbridge across its narrowest point, make his way up the steep rustic steps which led to the wood. Then he would simply walk along the track for a half-mile or so and back to where he had parked the car. Twenty minutes at the most. Maybe twenty five. He had glanced at the sky trying to gauge how much light was left, as if hidden behind the clouds was a clock which might suddenly break cover and all for the purpose of telling him the time. Six? Maybe quarter to? He thought of his phone again. In less than a month, at exactly the same point in the day, it would be around seven p.m., evidence of the biannual hourly shift he had never really understood. For a few paces his desire for more light left him - a desire which was immediately resurrected after a slight misstep and consequent moment of imbalance served to refocus his attention.
When he had looked down at his boots, now almost black on account of the rain, it seemed as if the whole world had darkened. The green beneath his feet had lost its vibrancy, all gradations in both shade and hue - clues as to the subtle rise and fall of the earth - had disappeared, scuttled away as if to satisfy the imperatives of overnight hibernation. Though there were few down by the lake, the tree roots which occasionally stretched across the path had also lost their definition in the gloom, and he recognised that, once up the steps and into the trees, it would be like walking through a field of trip-wires.
He had never questioned whether or not he would make it that far.