Lost

It’s a funny thing, being lost. The girl was musing as she walked through the forest. Not the sort of lost where you are going from A to B and you suddenly realise that you are possibly at C, D or even off the map entirely. No, this was the sort of lost where you look about you and have not the faintest idea about your surroundings.  To her, feeling lost should be equated with a sense of panic, of being thrown off course perhaps. The sort of happening which would set one back at least by a few minutes on returning to the desired state; that of knowing one’s whereabouts. This time, however, she felt no panic; in contrast, she felt more at peace than she had ever felt before. Perhaps this unexpected serenity was owing to the beauty of her surroundings; the snow crunching underfoot, the branches of the trees forming a canopy overhead through which a few rays of light escaped to dapple the forest floor. Her peace of mind could also be ascribed to the absence of a course to be diverted from by geographical uncertainty. For the girl was not only in unfamiliar terrain, but also in an unfamiliar state of mind.

Who am I? Whoever she was, the girl decided, she must have been under a lot of stress at one time or another if this peace she felt now was so alien to her. Looking down at her hands, she noticed the bitten fingernails and calluses which suggested a past of hard work and nervousness. As she continued walking she came to a clear lake with patches of ice floating over the surface.  Stepping closer to the water she noticed her reflection in the mirror of the lake; a rather long, pale face with blonde hair reaching the shoulders stared back at her. She could be any age between fifteen and twenty-five, the girl thought, although she couldn’t say what age she felt. She was not sure she felt much at all right now. She walked on, past the lake, her roughly made leather boots leaving tread marks in the snow. It did not feel cold to her, which was rather strange; in a place with snow this thick one should feel at least a breath of cold. The girl was wearing leggings and a woollen dress, but no hat or gloves. Perhaps this was a dream - the girl remembered the sensation of dreams, however, and this did not feel like one. She came to a stop underneath a wooden signpost with a lantern swinging from the top. Odd that it should be swinging when there was no breeze to stir it. The signs directed her in three ways through the trees. These must have been proper paths before the snow, she assumed. The writing on the sign was so worn as to be unreadable.

Without a better means of decision, the girl took the path that looked the easiest to travel. The rightward path was littered with branches and stones, the one leading to the left was narrower and overgrown, whilst the path leading straight ahead seemed easier to walk through, despite the heavy canopy of leaves reducing the visibility. So the girl continued walking at her easy pace on through the trees.