It was mid-afternoon and the sky was grey. There was no wind. It was cold but not painfully so. Twenties, by the feel of it. I dressed in hiking boots and socks, running pants, technical moisture wicking shirt, covered with a wicking t-shirt, followed by a wicking zip-up hoodie, a worn out down vest handmade by my deceased uncle strangely sent to me at Christmas time by his widow - my aunt, a pair of light gloves with grippy rubberized palms, and a watch cap. My plan was to head south on the trail, walk for an hour and a half, and then turn around. Maybe seven and a half or eight miles total. Snow started to fall about ten minutes out. After about an hour, I entered a section of the trail I wasn't familiar with. A cathedral of towering, red-barked evergreens. What are they, hemlocks? I'll have to look it up. I walked along the edge of a frozen swamp, the ground white with new powdery snow. My hat was crusted with a frozen sweat-snow mix. My glasses kept fogging up due to the ongoing clash between the cold air, my exhaled carbon dioxide and forehead sweat happening immediately in front of my face. The trail came upon a frozen brook down inside a deep cut. The trail sloped steeply down to the brook and rose steeply up on the other side. Everything was covered in new powder. I looked for a route across the mostly frozen stream and, finding one, stepped with my left foot onto what I thought was a flat stone. It was in fact wet ice covered in an inch of new slippery snow. My foot, rapidly followed by the other one, flew out in front of me. I remember seeing my left arm flying up in a rear diagonal direction and thinking that it didn't look like it was attached to my body. That's not good, I knew. When I landed, I came to the conclusion that my arm was broken in two places - somewhere near the elbow and then around my thumb or the heel of my hand. I got to my feet and staggered up the steep embankment on the other side. When I got to the top of the hill, I leaned against a big tree to regroup. I took my foggy glasses off and jammed them into my dead uncle's vest pocket. I spent a few minutes assessing the damage. Everything was movable in all the appropriate directions albeit painfully, there were no protrusions, obvious swelling or discoloration. I could feel no actual breaks in the bones. But it hurt and I felt defeated and deflated. It was cold and snow was beginning to pile up on me. There was a distant house through the trees. I thought about approaching the house, with snot leaking from one nostril and tears in my eyes, asking the occupant if they could call my Mommy for me. I hurt myself... Instead, I ate the energy bar I brought along and that bucked me up enough to keep going. My plan was to take the road home once the trail opened upon it because it was a more direct route than the trail. The falling snow brought dusk earlier than expected, and I wasn't really sure about the condition of my arm. When I arrived at the road, I was frustrated to realize I didn't know which way. My phone! They've got an app for that! I opened it up and found the little Google Maps icon. The snow fell upon the screen as I entered my address. I saw that it was 1.5 miles from where I was standing but, before I could determine in which direction, the screen went dark. I don't know if it was the cold or the snow it didn't like, but it had provided all the service it felt like providing. I decided on a right turn and walked for about half a mile trying to recognize something. I was pretty sure I knew the name of the road I was on just not exactly where i was upon it. Finally, I came upon a pond I recognized and realized I needed to turn around. I felt for my glasses inside my dead uncle's vest pocket. They were neither present or accounted for. I checked all of my pockets, my face, my head, under my hat. I found a hand-sized hole in the bottom of the pocket of the hand made vest. Cursing all things, I started to retrace my steps. It was getting close to dark now. Another inch of snow had fallen. My tracks on the road had already been covered. I walked all the way back to the creek where I'd broken myself. No sign of them. Not a sound. I remembered the tall straight evergreen that supported me when I wanted to call my Mommy. That's where I'd taken them off. I squatted beside that kind tree and scanned the snow, leaves, twigs and branches. There they were. Face down, arms folded in, lenses filled with snow, resigned to death by exposure. I tucked them into my pants pocket where they'd be warm and made the rest of the journey home without incident arriving just a little after dark. The Chinese horoscope for 2021 I read yesterday warned me not to travel because I'd likely have an accident. Check. Done. Next...
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