The woods were dappled, dark and grey, overcast like the light in my eyes. I stepped through the cold, my feet stumbling on patches of ice growing from the forest floor.

It had been so long since I had been here last, and memories were strewn about the path before me. I stopped to watch a deer leap quietly off into the underbrush, unnerved by my silence. I kept staring, lost in thought, and those memories slipped like wraiths of snow white out from between solemn trees. Those memories, both grey and warm, danced about in clouds of my own breath.

I knew where I was going, so my mind drifted between the trees and distant thoughts as I walked. I’d been there a hundred times, felt sweat trickle down my back as the terrain grew steep, knew the hard ache of stale breath in my lungs.

The world had been muddled for weeks, a mix of sleet and numbing snow. My head was as socked in as the mountains I loved. A vacancy sign had flickered and burned out long ago behind my eyes.

It was time to return.

Each step filled my lungs with fresh air, emptying out the shattered pieces of me from my lungs. Each breath swept the wool from my head.

Sunlight broke the plane of my horizon, filtering through snow topped cedar in my favorite way. It tumbled through the needles like a loving thing, stirring the green from melancholy to gold. I stopped in it and let the light kiss my skin. It warmed me with its touch, stirred that cold beating thing in my chest.

I kept moving until I stood on the summit.

I breathed deep.

I watched the silent town below.

Not a thing stirred, not a car moved. It was as if the world had vanished while I was shedding my skin in the forest. I listened to the call of the wind as it danced all around me. I felt its bite against my exposed skin. I let it whisper silent thoughts in my ears.

I waited and wondered if the world really had gone away, would that be so bad?

There was nothing left to do but close my eyes and let the touch of cold upon my face draw the demons from my skin. I stood there shivering in the windswept land of snow and dying grass, dappled by patches of sunlight.

That is how I felt, cold and barren and dotted with warmth.

I let the smell of cedar and pine and cold air flush my dark thoughts.

When I opened my eyes again a single car moved silently down a street far below.

A smile twitched at the corner of my lips and I turned and wandered back into the dark of the trees, away from the silent town, stirring beneath my troubled gaze.