So I am doing some short stories or sometimes just prose based on writing prompts in a journal titled Write the Story. Generally, the writing prompts includes a title and 8-10 words that need to be included in the story. I randomly pick a page and write. Today I picked A Hike in the Woods. I was able to use 5 of the 10 words given.

I had no doubt in my mind, I had just seen a leprechaun or a very fleeting image of one . But what did I know of leprechauns other than what I had seen in movies?

Still, there in the periphery of my vision, something had scurried by. I was sure of it..or perhaps my mind was just playing tricks on me. After all, it had been a while since I had taken a hike in the woods and alone at that.

Grief had messed my mind up! Half the time, I was a ball of tangled of emotions trying to make sense of this new world that kept moving despite what I felt was the end of mine. Grief was like a heavy sack shackled to me. Hence this lone walk in the woods.

Such walks had been good for me through other adversities in the past, clearing my mind, helping me think through things. But grief had proved to be a different animal altogether, quite immune to almost all of my habits, tricks and skills in my very well equipped how-to-get-through-shit bag.

Hitching my backpack a little higher, I trudged on more quietly now , stealth-fully even like some kind of covert agent, taking in the view around me, My mind was far though, thinking of mom, thinking of when she was still on this godforsaken planet. I missed her tremendously.

What was it I had seen? I didn’t see anything now. Just trees and long dry grasses on either side of the path before me. I listened to the quiet and the birds and my own footsteps on the path; and in a way practiced a little mindfulness at least momentarily anyway. I knew sooner or later, I’d be back to thinking about mom and I guess that was okay too. Because like this hike taking me through a winding path with changing scenery, never really sure what lay beyond the curve ahead and perhaps even seeing figments of my own imagination, grief was the same way.