At the entrance to the trail is a silver observatory, windows with one shutter ripped off. A tiny animal sits a few yards away at the base of a pine tree. I take a step forward. A chipmunk, I finally realize. And with that, it scampers into the shadowed forest.
The path is spongy, littered with broken branches, pine cones, acorns. The green ivy is blotched black with an unknown blight. A nearby bush rustles and squeaks, startling me for a moment. Birds. The canopy covers the overhead sky like the blight. There is a small clearing, and on a rise of gray stone and purple flowers is a tower.
It is tall, thin, and off limits to the public. It looks like a prison with decayed windows and a light green dunce cap. I dare not touch it.
Inspiration: Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. "And those men who are inventors and interpreters between Nature and man, as compared with boasters and declaimers of the works of others, must be regarded and not otherwise esteemed than as the object in front of a mirror, when compared with its image seen in the mirror. For the first is something in itself, and the other nothingness--Folks little indebted to Nature, since it is only by chance that they wear the human form and without it I might class them with the herd of beasts." --Leonardo da Vinci Internet Medieval Sourcebook. I may have posted this link before, but I've got to say, it's fascinating to read the thought processes that went on hundreds of years ago.
