Spring was on its way; the bitter cold of the past week now just a memory. The sun, which had decided to come out in force, glared off the inch think coat of snow and ice uncomfortably into the man’s eyes. Looking down through the trees now, he wished he had brought his sunglasses along. But sunglasses, in his mind, were for summer beaches, not walks in a snow-covered wood.
A line of inch deep tracks stretched behind him where his boots had broken then sunk into the ice topped snow. Never the less he could feel the season’s change coming on his skin, and smell it in the air. It was the fresh, crisp smell of plants that only needed a few more weeks to shake off their winters sleep and shoot skyward once more, reaching their leaves high toward the light.
He took pause, if only a moment, and looked back over his shoulder. He could still see the houses he had departed from not long ago. They now seemed miniaturized, and reminded him of the perfect model homes on a toy train display.
“But lacking the oversized plastic animals.” he laughed to himself and continued on his way.
Sunglasses he may have forgotten, but his thick-shafted maple walking stick he did not. Perhaps the most important, mainstay of his trips, the staff had helped him enough times that he wouldn’t want to be without it. People had made fun of it, or him, probably both at times. But be it ice, mud, water or rocks, it hadn’t let him down yet, and he wouldn’t give up his favorite tool over a few wiseass remarks anyway. He had picked the branch himself, right off the tree after it had been felled. It was etched with three carvings, all by his hand. The first a maple leaf, to honor the tree that had given the branch. Secondly, to honor the spirit of the forest, an elderly man’s face. Thirdly, his initials, which marked it as his own. The man knew he’d probably wear before the staff did, and deep down, he hoped it went just that way.