Little Walks

1 - Carbon River, Lewis County

I step from one stone to the next, keeping my feet light as the river threatens to overturn our precarious footholds. I wonder for a moment when we come to a stop - could we cross from one gravelly bank to the other like this, leaping from one stone to the next, pausing on each small sandbar to catch our balance?

It's a compelling idea, but the water is deep enough to soak through my notebook easily, ruining all I want to record in it. The risk isn't quite worth the reward, and it seems my companion is more than happy to simply relax on the driftwood log and listen to the wind in the waters.

I open to the first page, sitting down at the other end, and begin to write.

A windstorm swept through here before our arrival. Our original plan forward is blocked by collapsed trees donning long green ball gowns of moss, and part of the road we walked upon had caved in and fallen to the riverbank, leaving only just enough room for us to walk side by side. The forest surrounding the river is just as crowded with debris, stretching as far as the eye can see into its depths. A small wooden outpost stands near the riverbank, surrounded by trees; its roof has turned green with lack of care, and evergreen saplings have sprouted from the mosses and ferns.

If not for the others wandering this place, I could almost have been fooled into thinking we had survived an apocalypse. Not one of those loud, massively destructive ones, of course - no nuclear wars or zombie invasions or anything of the sort - but rather a quiet sort of death, of a world falling silent in an instant, of candles simply being snuffed out. No decorum, no divine declarations of penance, just... an end.

Which is, I suppose, what happened. Almost one year ago today.

One year since the world effectively went silent. Since humanity became locked behind closed doors and glowing screens. Since the world as we had grown to understand and accept it came screeching to a halt.

And now begins the time to understand. To heal. To regrow, as the saplings grow from the weathered outpost in the trees.

This is why we walk outside.