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He steps into a sea of footprints, each his own. He has been this way

before. There are twenty-three trees he can see from where he

stands. Everything else sinks into the rising ground, the thick

whiteness that stretches from his feet to the sky above him. Only the

trees stand out, volcanic against the soft haze.

The snow drapes in front of him, trailing through the air with each

step. There is no end to the clouds above, and they will keep

snowing. The ground is smoothed by snow and features are dimmed by the

cold. Direction vanishes without the sky, and time fades to the subtle

changes of light. It is a homeless world, without comfort, without the

faces of the ones he loves.

Capped by snow, sliding into the white field that stretches out,

mushrooms grow from the base of one of the twenty-three trees. He waits

each moment inside his stomach. He cannot eat the unknown fruit of an

unknown tree yet. He is not hungry enough.

The first aid kit is impossible. It has no reason to be here, in the

woods, uncovered by snow. He drops to his knees and his skin aches, but

he does not listen. With numb fingers, he pushes open the aluminum

lid.

There is nothing inside.

A flare of snow trails off the tip of his foot. The box lands, sitting

in the snow just as he left it. While he breathes his heat into the

air, he draws a line between the two points he can now see. The clouds

of his mind break for a moment. A map begins with a single line.

He follows the trail of his feet back. They are dusted with snow, but

they are the freshest of all the footsteps that run though here. Ahead,

his feet stop and pace around a focal point. The mushrooms are there.

...The mushrooms were there. He knew they were there. It's the right

tree. It's the right place. He digs his hands into the snow. The melt

on his fingers burns his bones but he digs down to dirt. There are no

mushrooms.

There is no kit.

There are twenty-three trees he can see from where he stands. He steps

into a sea of footprints, each his own. He has been this way before.

Each minute stretches with the effort of driving his feet through the

snow. Each step becomes a minute. The first aid kit sits just as he

left it, three feet to the right of where he walks. He passes it

twice. The third time, he picks it up. The heat of insanity presses

against the cold seeping in against his dry skin. He must be walking in

circles.

The first aid kit sits just as he left it, three feet to the right of

where he stands. The first aid kit sits also in his hands. The two of

them occupy his vision together, and the world does not come crashing

down.

One kit collides with another. They are both real. He lifts his eyes

and squints. Out of the haze, he can make out the red on white crosses

like a field in front of him. He screams into the falling snow and it

ices the breath from his lips. Frustration strains against his skin and

he starts to run.

He steps into a sea of footprints, each his own. He has been this way

before. But they will no longer be his. He is clever now. He tugs at

strings. His boots fall to the ground. His coat warms a tree

branch. He wades through a forest of snow and sleeping trees and

aluminum boxes offering him hollow help.

He wants to stroke a shoulder, to lean his head against a pillow that

knows his shape, to walk through halls whose distance he knows by

pace. In his mind, he holds the faces whose definition escape his

words. They are abstract; love and concern, anxious and impatient. He

cannot see them now, and he may never see them again.

His discarded clothes join the taunt. A tree wears his coat

low-slung. His boots sit by his footprints, invitingly open. Again and

again, they demand he fight.

The mushrooms come again. He knows their shape more clearly than

anything now. In bare toes, damp and pink and numb to the heels but

burning on the inside, he crouches.

The unknown fruit of an unknown tree is soft. Ice crystals inside it

crunch under his teeth. It is an oaky paste when he swallows it. Then

comes pain. A beast roars against his gut. The snow sears along his

side, but his legs cannot hold him up. Seaweed trees ripple in the

waves that wash through the air.

His fingers curl, not chilled but tense. He claws at the snow, too numb

to move his fingers. The joints puff, the flesh swells and aches and

pulls in against itself. He digs a naked paw into the snow.

The sky is radiant and the snow electric. His paws rake his chest but

the pain is no more than a prick and now he is free from his shirt. His

lungs tighten and the air shrivels inside them, but then he breathes

deep through a thick, rounded chest.

His tongue darts over his lips as an iron tinge meets his taste. Each

lap chills his tongue, spreading ice atop the searing furnace of his

body. Longer and flatter it hangs, dangling from his lips, letting each

hot breath spill into the cold world.

His spine twists as he moves to stand. His front legs will not leave

the snow. His hands no longer burn; they are paws, and the snow is

their home. Behind him tendons gather to welcome a new tail.

The heat turns his mind opaque. He wants to relieve the burning.

He steps into a sea of footprints, each another's, the wanderings of the

one who had come here before him. He lifts his chin to the sky and

throws aside all thought. Instinct comes without thought or

conscience. A great relief falls on him.

The concepts he once knew, the ideas of love and concern and Wife and Child, are gone. He does not know they are gone.

But they know that he will never come back. Buried, cold and white

beneath the snow, he howls his pleasure in a dead dream.