Worthy Witness

I was taking a walk by myself.  I had my bleached, tall walking stick that I had found on the beach of the Cape.  It was quiet, only the birds seemed happy that I was there on the narrow trail of Greilsheimer’s Woods.  It was my first walk in those woods, and I found the terrain to be quite challenging.  I was not as young as I used to be, and not too old to forget how good it was to be that young.

I was thinking about nothing, nothing of importance, that is.  My mind is always working, and sometimes I just want to turn it off.  For instance, I saw a stone that looked like a frog, and I imagined that it could croak.  Silly me! a stone that croaks.  Suddenly I lost the sun, and  was walking through a bright green grove of ferns under a canopy of ancient trees.  I wondered how they could be so green with so little sunlight until I discovered the small stream that fed them.

That’s when the path turned to an open meadow. I didn’t remember a meadow showing on the map, so I thought I was lost.  As far as my eyes could see, there were little girls practicing face painting.  There were some in groups of four, but most were practicing with one another.  They were taking turns with the designs.  Some were painting face masks of lions and tigers and dogs and cats; others were mastering vines and flowers on legs and arms.  The strangest of all, though, was the little girl who was painting her feet.  All alone, she sat on a giant toadstool near the large, round table fashioned from a tree that had fallen.

She looked so determined, I thought not to stop, but something about her told me to stay.  I put down my stick and quietly sat on a log fallen over.  We exchanged glances, but nothing was said.  I watched while she painted one toe, then all five, the top and bottom and then onto the other.  I heard in the distance a cow’s bell or was it a clang.  There was a single clap of hands and everyone disappeared.

Magic! I thought, the enchantment of the forest, that’s all.  I stood up from my log, picked up my stick and followed the white footprints.  They walked and then seemed to run, they leapt and then kind of shuffled; they led me back to where I’d begun.