Tiny Treasures

There was a certain harshness to the breeze and the growing curtain of cotton-gauze white and phantasm-smoke gray to the west that disinclined me from wandering into the Backcountry. More to the point, up onto the tundra. Of course, I wanted to get out. The question became where.

Sabina had a book come in at the library, but had obligations to attend to. So, I took one of my favorite local trails the two miles down-valley to get it for her. It's not the first time I've walked two miles, if not more, just to acquire a book. I even contemplated getting a cha'i at one of the local coffeehouses.

Although, in those past lives I remember and you do not, there was not a six-hundred vertical foot elevation change on those walks, and the wildlife of a city-those villains, vandals, and vagrants-was far more threatening than the thought of a mountain lion finding my aberrant tall and lanky ass even remotely appetizing. Even in the depths of starvation. So it goes.

It'd been quite awhile since I'd walked the trail, and it was like playing ketchup with an old, old friend. Part of me chided myself for not wandering this route a little more than I had. Briefly, I wondered why I'd not, but that answer played obvious as I advanced along the uphills at the speed of owl feathers; I'd been off exploring. Collecting stories from places I'd either never been or had seen maybe once before.

It could've been said I was collecting the small treasure of a story even as I walked a familiar local favorite trail of mine. Why not? Years and lifetimes ago, I told a dragon of my acquaintance there was a story in everything. Perhaps that is profound cosmic truth, but I think my uttering it was simply a case of being far too impressed with my own intelligence and dragging a friend along for the ride.

The coffeeshop was closed, but the library was not. It wasn't like I didn't have the fixings for cha'i at home, and those slowly advancing western clouds seem to give context to such a beverage. In the interest of doing a loop and having a bit more of an adventure, I opted to take the trails following narrow-gauge railroad tracks. It was there I encountered a few railroad workers cutting down dead trees by the tracks for firewood. Our exchanges were pleasant.

Going up the six-hundred vertical did not take as long as going down. Queer, but the terrains of the respective trails were different. I was given a fresh perspective upon some of the trails within walking distance of home. Perhaps that was a lesson, a story, and one of the tiny treasures I acquired along the way.

Another tiny treasure; a little trail booty to hang up on the House of Owls and Bats. Oh, happy day...