Memories

Memories resurface like bubbles from a pond. At odd moments they return and you are forced to recall feelings of another time.....

The rain is light, misting actually. It's barely noticeable as I walk down the gravelled road. For some reason, on this particularly grey Saturday, I decide to hike up a path in the woods beside me. As I'm moving upwards, a dog has appeared at my side. He's nondescript in his appearance, even now I can't remember him. I only know that he was there with me as I crested the hill at long last. Before me was a large plot of land, flat and covered in growth that could soon be hay. A huge hulking skeleton of a barn was to my right. The sky was the color of lead. I moved forward, taking in the details of this place. The dog was close to me, and suddenly the hair on the back of my neck tingled. I felt as though someone were watching me. Turning around, I saw nothing. The dog had remained at my side, solidly, his hackles raising. I couldn't move, for fear or for safety. I just kept looking around, the sky becoming darker, the structure beside me suddenly more menacing. Had something heinous taken place here? Why this overwhelming feeling of dread and foreboding? The dog had decided to trust its instincts and fled back down the hillside. I stuck it out a bit longer, just rooted in the place I stood. I took in these feelings as the clouds were roiling in their displeasure. Lightening ripped through the sky and I finally found myself moving back down the hill. I never saw that dog again, and I never ventured up that path the rest of the time I lived out there. Part of me wonders if my overactive, overstimulated imagination conjured up the heebie jeebies that day, or if I was possibly picking up some feelings trapped there from long ago. And why now, after all these years, did this memory choose to haunt me? Perhaps it's time to head back out there again, to see what lies on the top of that hill....