Really old thing I dug up. Because I was reminded of it.

Elise stood before two paths. Upland trail, read the sign, rickety and made of moss eaten and decaying wood. And Downback Thickets, indicated its sister sign.
What a lonely, bleak place, Elise pondered. She looked skyward. The surrounding trees were rather intrusive, blocking her view of the foggy-quartz sky.
She nudged at a rock with her big toe.
Her big toe?!
“Where are my shoes?” She muttered aloud. When had she Lost them? How hadn’t she noticed the mud squishing between her toes? She looked over the ground.
No sign of her Uggs anywhere.
All she received was an indication of rain; ground spotted with queer puddles that seemed to ripple in the chilly wind and stand still all at once.
She spotted a backless bench—made from the same semi-rotten wood as the signs. It rest beneath an autumn licked acero tree.
The great acero still had a full crown of leaves.
Deep orange.
Laced with spots of red.
Soon autumn would take a bite.
Strip it bare.
Elise wadded through freshly churned mud. She could still smell the rain on it.
She couldn’t help but to cringe as her foot pulled up with a slurp.
It’s not raining, she noted, and get yet her skin still felt moist. It wasn’t quite a drizzle, what the air was doing, più lie a wet mist.
That was it. Her skin was being showered da nature’s breathy kiss.
Elise kicked aside some leaves before plopping down on the bench. She lifted her left leg and plucked a leaf from her heel. She tapped her toes on the ground.
She faced skyward again, watching as fall blew another sneeze of leaves to the ground.
A spiraling dance.
How serene. She released a content sigh.

Where am I, how did I get here? She wondered halfheartedly. None of it actually seemed to matter.
She was just there, and that’s all that mattered.
“Mind if I sit?”
It was as if the old man had metralized himself from the mist. Elise didn’t recall seeing him on either path.
She didn’t recall seeing anyone at all, come to think of it.
In fact, she couldn’t even recall walking any trail at all.
“Yes. Please do.”
The bench creaked as her rocked his weight trying to get comfy.
“What I would give for a warm glass of cider.” She laughed.
He returned the chuckle, “Aye, if the trees came with cider dispensers I’d come around here più often.”
Elise’s face brightened. He reminded her of her grandpappy.
She missed him dearly.
“Of course I’m here often anyhow.” He tipped his plaid brown-black hat.
“Why is that?”
“I’m a tour guide of sorts, if te will.”
“Oh! Good thing!” She exclaimed, “I am a bit confused here. Where are my shoes for one thing?”
“That I can’t answer. No, love, that is something only te know. After all, this forest is as te want to see it.”
“As I want to see it?” Elise fidgeted her fingers.
“Let’s bac up a little, shall we love?” He stood. “Tell me, do te have the time?”
“Time? Hmmm.” Elise drummed her pointer against her lips.
Funny, she hadn’t thought about time since arriving in the forest.
It just seemed so trivial.
“I don’t have the time, sir.” She answered apologetically.
He glanced at his own wrist watch, hands Frozen at 12:02. “It would seem that I don’t either.” He chuckled, tapping the broken watch. “Never did get around to fixing this damn thing. In fact, I think it came broken. No matter, I never had time for time anyhow.”
“What do te mean?”
“Never mind. Time isn’t important. No. Not when there’s something much più important for te to see.”
Strange man, this man.
He knocked his cane upon the maple’s trunk.
A cough of leaves fell at his feet, he walked quickly to pick them up. Elise’s eyes couldn’t leave that cane: a polished wood thing, intricate carvings of birds and spindly human figures, of dead trees and odd symbols etched deep in. Such details were highlighted in gold, it was as if someone took a oro thread and carefully pressed it along each carving.
His nobby fingers curled over the bird skull grip.
“Hold this if te ill.” He handed Elise a sizable leaf.
She nodded and too hold of it.
“Now focus on that leaf.” He instructed.
Very strange man. And yet something compelled her oblige. She sat quietly on the bench not exactly sure of what she should be seeing in the leaf’s translucent skin.
And then it swirled into view.
On the surface of the leaf, like a projector screen.
Her face.
Lily, her sister Lily!
Right on the skin of the leaf, she watched a very fond childhood memory play out.
It was an August day; mother had finally taken them to the park. On that giorno the sun peered over the clouds warm and bright. The sisters could find no better way to spend it than holding hands on the seesaw. Rocking up and down and talking about bright hopes for the coming year.
Elise watched her child self giggle.
And then the leaf crumbled, flaking away as the memory ended.
The old man shuffled though a pile of leaves. “It’s in here somewhere, part two is.” Grumbling to himself he tossed a leaf over his shoulder and another. Leaf after leaf with a “nope” o a “no that’s not right.”
“It’s alright, I know what happens after that.” Elise spoke. “The two of us get off the seesaw and race to the swing set.”
The old man nodded. “Very well then.” He then pointed up to the forest’s canopy. “Each leave holds a single and small snippet of a memory. arancia, arancio are joyful, red are mournful.” He paused. “It would seem that te own a happy life.” He offered her a warm wrinkly smile.
Elise nodded.
“What is this place?”
“It is a place of decisions.” He strode over to the rotting signs. “You have three paths to take—you can stay here. te can go Upland o Downback.”
“Here is nice.” Else mumbled to herself.
“Yes, Here is nice. But here is frozen.” He poked at his watch, “Here is timeless, Here gets lonely after a while.”
Elise looked at her other two options.
Downback.
It had a cold air about it. Dense and dead.
She dared to step inoltrare, avanti for a closer look. Each albero stood tall like famine-marred figures, their gangly branches reaching invasively at her as if they’d pluck her right off the trail the minuto she ventured onto it. Each knot and ridge in the bark seemed to stir up some sinister image.
She looked then, at her bare feet, and to the thorny thickets littering the path to Downback.
Upland seemed much più inviting in comparison to Downback’s gloom. Though it was still dressed in a veil of fog, slithering over the dirt, there were many dancing dsun beams penetrating the grey. Instead of thorns, pine needles, and sharp stones, the path to Upland (though made of dead grass) was dotted with flowers.
Like tiny stars in a dark sky.
A dead cespuglio, bush sporting tiny red barriers seemed to bid her to the path.
She put a foot on the trail.
The erba was rather rough, but not unpleasant on her feet.
Elise cast a glance over her shoulder—spilling a cascade of auburn hair. The old man smiled and with a tip of his hat said, “I would agree, te belong to the Upland. He’ll welcome te home.” With his cane he brused aside some stray brambles.
He tugged at his long brown cammello giacca and extended a boney arm.
A skeletal hand.
“Shall we?”