Then And Back Again

[F2d5thCav]

Once again, the old man was performing what had become an annual ritual.  He had voyaged to that particular spot in the woods.  The location was on a small rise that formed a berm overlooking a road that twisted through the tight valley.  On the slopes flanking the road, tall, majestic pines soared skyward and grew so closely together that the floor of the forest was kept in a sort of perpetual gloom.

The weather was getting colder by the day, but the first frost had not yet arrived.  Finding a stump of suitable width, Herve Fauré gladly sat down to catch his breath.  He glanced at the woods about him.  How peaceful it all looks now, he mused.  Reaching into the right breast pocket of his hunter's jacket, Herve withdrew a small metal flask.  Unscrewing the cap, he slowly brought the flask to his lips and enjoyed a sip of Cointreau.

Further sips, slowly savored, loosened his attachment to the here and now.  As a middling stiff breeze began pushing through the pines and spruces, he closed his eyes and listened to his own breathing, while the scenery in his mind's eye subtly changed and his internal sense of passed time rocketed backwards.  Backwards, through the decades . . . to a lost world.

~ ☼ ~