Written for
sentinel_thurs challenge #247 - Meditation
Title: THE BREATH OF WOODS
Author: Banbury McBurg
Rating: gen
Warnings: AU
Word count: 496
Author'notes: unbetaed, all mistakes are solely mine
Inhalation
He wanders through the forest following the narrow path that waves amongst gigantic tree trunks. Numerous bushes and flowers behind simple wooden fence tremble under the wind reaching their leaves out to touch his skin and he strokes it relishing the differences in its smoothness. He raises his head to look at the tree crowns that seem to be miles away from the ground and loses himself for a while watching lights and shadows in them.
He thinks of this place as his personal asylum. He found it not long after Caroline had persuaded him to move to San Francisco from Cascade in the hollow attempt to save their marriage. Previous life appeared to be unsaveable. He stayed here and built life resembling real. However, only this place became real ‘real’.
He wanders through the forest following the narrow path that waves amongst gigantic tree trunks. This is his personal form of meditation - long walk washes all thoughts, constant headache, unpleasant smells and strange voices out of his head and leaves him tabula rasa for a new day, for the new imprints of life.
Path guides him deeper than usual. Jim sighs and lets it. He feels pull from nowhere, magnet that affects his sense of direction. Time slows and all smells, sounds and images focuses on a solitary figure sitting on the ground far, far ahead.
Beacon for the lost soul.
Exhalation
He wanders through the forest following the narrow path that waves amongst gigantic tree trunks. The strange, rich with freshness, coolness of water, scents of new leaves and something undetectable air leaves him lightheaded and light-hearted. He caresses bark of ancient Sequoias, rubs his cheek against its roughness. He sits on the stones above small creek listening to its song with his eyes firmly closed.
Strangely enough, thinks Blair, he never been there before. Shame on me! He’d heard of
Muir Woods and thought of coming there, but this visit was unexpected. He needed to go out of city, away from people to clear his mind, to find himself and reestablish his connection to the world. Blair shamelessly skipped the day at the conference and came here.
He wanders through the forest following the narrow path that waves amongst gigantic tree trunks. He doesn’t know how much time he spent there - tree crowns are too thick to see the sky clearly. He finds small clearing at the foot of a Redwood and lowers to the ground. With his eyes closed, the other senses become sharper and more open. He breathes this unique air very slow - in and out. In and out. In. Out.
Hasty birds’ pipe, scent of a new-blown wild raspberries, feel of the chopped bark under his thighs open his mental eyes and ears to the eternal song of nature just to fill his physical body with sought new energy. He feels movement of every leaf, every drop of water, every step…
The ground reverberates with the steps of destiny.