A walk in the woods - working title

Fall lived up to its name this year and fell hard, with the abrupt death of summer and in days the death of warmth and life. The leaves sacrificing themselves for the tree but doing so in a magnificent display of color worthy of the greatest masters brush.

I pondered the life of the leaf as I walked. Birth in spring, soft and resilient. Growth through summer's good times and warmth. Then this spectacular death.

Could I have a spectacular death? What an odd thought.

It was better than the thoughts that were haunting me and keeping me up at night. It was better than the panic that was encroaching my brain and sending my heart into galloping fits.

I didn't know what to do. I'd done all of my usual attacks on a problem and yet no solution loomed. I had sought counsel, I'd been silent and waited, I'd made lists, I'd even taken some action... actually any action. Just to be doing something. Here I still stood. I felt as if I was living in a crossroads.

Could I just be a crossroads? Me personally? It seemed as if no matter what I did, there I was at a crossroads again. Maybe fate was handing me bum cards on purpose to see what I'd do.

Well that would be something, if I believed in fate, and people can't be crossroads, that's just silly.

I can't do this, I can't, I don't know how. Maybe if I give up someone will show me the way... or maybe I will just sit here and die. That wouldn't be a spectacular death.

I need some sort of meaning. A purpose or goal. A direction. I am a ship with no rudder, I am flying blind.

I shivered and not from the rapidly cooling air, and my surroundings came flooding back. The sky was darkening, earlier than yesterday, and the distinct feeling of eyes on the back of my neck, made me stop and look around. I was alone in these woods, I heard no step, but I no longer felt alone.

****

As I watch, Her dark gold hair lights up like a candle flame when sunlight brushes over her.

The sunlight seems to love her, clinging a bit longer desperately grasping at strands of hair or a glint of skin until the shadows yank it away, only to leap to greet her again as she passes into its presence.
I watch as she walks through the rays of light, her steps soft but the leaves still crunching beneath her. Her red hood bobs its way in and out among the shadows, trailing locks of curling sunlight. I like her hair, like a thousand shades of yellow and caramel, I wonder if it would feel like silk in my fingers. I watch it bounce and curl over her shoulders, and down her back. Touching her hair must be like holding the rays of the sun.

As she picks her way carefully through a narrow bit of the path, skirting overhung branches, she reminds me of that children's story and I wonder, “what is a riding hood?”

Would her pink cheeks feel warm to my fingers? Is her skin as smooth and soft as it looks? Her body is pleasing to me, and I enjoy letting my eyes wander over her, taking my time over my favorite parts.
I can't see her eyes, I don't know what her gaze would feel like, but I want to see it, to look into her eyes, and see if I can glimpse her soul. If I glimpse hers, could she in turn see mine?
 
She doesn't know me, but I know her. I want to know what she knows, I want to know if she knows a wolf is lurking. Can she see? I can. I can see her. I can see everything.


**************** edit *************************
It was suggested to me that I modify or delete the first paragraph as I originally posted it.
For the moment I am going to leave off the first paragraph and decide if I like the flow better.
Thank you all for your helpful comments.


Here is the original paragraph, now deleted -

A dance of sacrifice surrounds me. The fluttering down of martyrs, and the soft crunch of their spent husks under my boots. The sun is prism-ed through reds, golds, greens, oranges and browns, fractured among the peeping sky. Even the brisk air is scented with the pirey death of their predecessors.

**************end edit begin addition********

The rays of the sun seemed to bend as he watched. As if the light yearned to caress her. When it reached its goal, he thought he saw a tiny burst of joyful gold.

The leaves took on what could have been choreographed routes to the ground twirling and spinning. They seemed to vie for her gaze. Courses becoming more complex within range of her vision and drearily falling limp when her gaze departed.

The forest was aware of her. Not just the scampering animals and the stalking predators. The forest itself.

The ground pushed up to meet her steps, the breeze changed course to brush by her sleeve. The trees swayed as if to get a better look. The rays of light bent to bathe her, or in her.
The forest was glorying in her company, and she was unaware.
I watched her flit in and out of my sight and heard her crunching steps. Her pace quickened and the crunching slowly faded. I waited until I could no longer hear her step before I emerged.
The sun was slowly smoldering its way down the edge of the sky. A carpet of dusk rolled across the town nestled in the foothills of low lying mountains across the banks of the Yangeez River. Blackness crept its way among the trees, back alleys, fenced in yards, and abandoned toys winding through the small community.

The darkness seemed to act as a sound dampener, now flowing freely throughout the town, broken only by the light streaming through windows and doors. As the darkness grew, silence slowly fell until the only remaining noise was the song of crickets and the random call of a mother to an errant child to hurry home for supper. The beacon of lit windows in the night began to flicker.

As I watched, black muffler of the night began choking out all sound and light until even the crickets chirp was quashed, and the last light extinguished as its inhabitants stumbled off to find slumber.

****

In the pit of night, a lone figure seemed to be standing sentinel over the town. It was the shape of a man but darkness cloaked him, its caress loving. He seemed to wear the night. The darkness shifting with him as he moved, squirming out from him to touch whatever he neared.