The woods stretched ahead, like the universe, with no time and no horizon line to sever sky from earth, only irregular treetops that pointed to the atmosphere which turned lighter and lighter, until there was no color, or white, an absence, or just endlessness. I walked to my own rhythm with an old ditty circling in mind: White is zero, black ten, all the colors, red five, orange four, and pale blue three, paler blue two. Number one? Off-white, a creamy white, there are many whites, or absences, many shades of black, when the entire spectrum is present, so that two whites look strange against each other, two blacks, also. White is zero, black is ten, pink three, yellow three also, and shocking pink slides into number four territory, ordinarily claimed by orange and some shades of green, though green is usually a six, lime green may be five. Real red like my mother's lipstick is five. Pink is three, orange four, and I repeated numbers and colors as I walked farther into the woods with no fear or sense of mission and time. Occasionally, I hoped something, even I, might give the walk substance and shape, the way a designer constructs a chair to communicate an idea, like a chair by the Eameses, though a designed object also refers to its maker, marks its author, but if I were a Transcendentalist, any walk, a walk itself, in nature might have meaning. I didn't feel this, I was a solitary walker on a path whose direction I followed because it was there, and I wasn't prepared to machete under- and overgrowth, chop down fir trees and shrubs, which is probably illegal in this region and will bring trouble, to forge a new trail, so I was aimlessly treading a well-worn path in the woods, a picture of anonymity or an unrecognizable object, and, if photographed from high above, just a splotch or blot on the forest floor, if that. Discovering the Count in hiding near the community could give me purpose, depending upon what I make of it, what interpretation I pursue or how I bring the news to the community, particularly Contesa, if I do tell her, but I'll mark it, as I do him, so this walk differs from others. If his comedy and tragedy genuinely engages mine, though lately I want to sunder relationships and take things apart, then leave them in desuetude, a true connection has asserted itself. Aqua can be four and sometimes three, a light shade of brown is seven, darker eight, and a brown-black will be nine, while navy blue is always nine, royal blue eight, and if I'd gone into my father's business, I'd have concentrated on the spectrum of colors and sinuous threads, I'd have spent hours handling cloth and smelling it, counting warps and weaves, as I designed and manufactured textiles, since people need clothes, the way they need food and shelter, though what kinds, what styles, and consumed for what intentions, aren't simple, so people budget, steal, or spend inordinate amounts of time and money, expending furies of anxiety and plenty of hope on their selections, though everything is temporary and inconclusive. Clearly, the Count must have run from the seance into the woods, after gathering his necessities, right after the paranormal event, which I'd mostly forgotten, but now it assumed a funny but confusing face-Moira's. I beheld that odd inquisitive woman, destiny, and heard her vivacious, rolling voice: "We all wish to speak to the dead. It's a universal wish." I cringed or started, and looked everywhere around me, but Moira wasn't there. Often I see faces, the dead and living who aren't present, I conjure them, but this is normal, since normal vision fuses incoming sensation with internally generated sensation, when the brain fills in what it's used to seeing or expects to see, which encouraged a vision scientist to conclude, "In a sense, we are all hallucinating all the time," and this explains the haplessness of police line-ups and eyewitness accounts, their innate tendency to inaccuracy, but Leslie Van Houten's complicity was never in doubt, just the measure of her guilt. I've never before had an auditory hallucination, if hearing Moira's voice was one, though it seemed to come from outside me, raising several kinds of doubt, but I hadn't willed it, unless I had, since it's hard discerning a thought from a desire. I might have been thinking aloud, I must have been. It was about 2 or 3 p.m., the sun hung closer to the west, still bright. Wishing on a star is a childish impulse, but I gave in to that wish and, reluctantly, might again, because of a slim hope unknowable forces might help me, there's nothing lost in doing it, except the future of hope's credibility; still, my impulses and desires have left ruinous monuments in their wake. Attending the seance qualified as an impulse, and, even if the seance was unsettling at the time, it was an experience I must have wanted, though I'd never wished for it, didn't ratify it, and, anyway, haven't thought much about it, because there's no place to store it, since a mental apparatus I don't choose-about most things I have no choice-decides its fate, along with other stark, improbable events I can't categorize and remember. Before the seance started, I recalled the tarot card reader's prophesy, which I discount and yet can't forget, hope against hope, to overcome an obstacle or encounter a person who will change my life. Now, "Everyone wishes to speak to the dead" had lodged itself, and so, the odd inquisitive Moira, whom I didn't like, resided in me.
Things seem plain, and they aren't, but there's no going back, everything's in motion, matter doesn't die, and some human matters, especially, persist, because they're irresolvable and irremediable, people accumulate consequences. I kept walking, staring at the sky as it imperceptibly changed color, then down at the trail and the snow beneath my feet, while listening for the songs of birds, their elaborated calls, which I didn't understand, and often halted in my tracks to watch them, whose identity I didn't know, except for finches, mourning doves, crows, seagulls, and sparrows. For about ten minutes, a strong wind blew the trees and shook old snow, so that it fell and lightly dusted my coat, scarf, hair, and trail, but it stopped quickly, and I didn't feel worried or cold; instead, while the light snow swirled, I imagined that the crystal ball my dead friend bought me as a joke souvenir accompanied me, a good luck piece, and even owned the power to transform the woods into venerable, ugly, and beautiful Vienna, whose early 20th century architecture and design I revered, so the tallest trees became monuments or memorials. The snow must be telling us something, he kept repeating, impishly, and he may have been right, it uncannily foreshadowed the unidentifiable future, since snow blankets on a mountain hid insidious crevices through which he probably fell and disappeared. In my room, I can easily lift the crystal ball, turn it upside down, shake it with vigor, and the fake snowflakes occlude its scene, nothing else happens, but now the city of Vienna vanished, and I chided myself for wishing, since it was only the woods, vast, natural, weird, and when a fine lace crested on my hair, scarf, and shoulders and touched my face, I wondered if it was moisturizing or drying it and also remembered other snowfalls, which smelled the same as this one did now. I took several breaths, sucked in the fresh mixture of spring and winter air, and filled my healthy lungs. I was so alive, but it's strange to be alive, it is very strange to live. There's imagination and knowledge, I'm free to wander toward no end or for no discernible reason, but also I often duel with purpose and rarely beat it. The light snowfall ended quickly.