PROMPT 005: A man forms a unique connection with a wild animal.

 PROMPT 005: A man forms a unique connection with a wild animal.

Six miles in, Rodney could no longer feel his feet. No - he didn’t have feet anymore. All he had was pain.

Rodney was not an experienced hiker. He’d only been doing it for six months, to help him lose a few pounds after his divorce, and maybe even “reconnect with nature,” whatever the hell that meant. He hated exercise on principle, but he actually found himself looking forward to his hikes, and planned at least one a week when the weather was good and he didn’t have to watch his daughter. 

Most of Rodney’s hikes had only been a mile or two. Once, he stretched himself and walked a nice paved path with a few hills that clocked in at 3.8 miles. And afterward he felt… great. Like he could tackle any challenge.

He was wrong.

On a nice warm Saturday in April, Rodney left his house at dawn and drove to a state park an hour away. The park’s website touted its scenic trails. The one he picked, the East Lake Loop, winded through a thick forest alongside a large man-made fishing lake and was advertised as a “rustic trail.” He thought that sounded nice. It was listed at 7.1 miles. Rodney thought, Hell, I won’t be in any hurry. If it takes me all day, who cares? He packed a rucksack full of snacks and bottled water.

When he arrived that morning and began his hike, Rodney knew this one would be different. “Rustic trail,” apparently, meant not much of a trail at all.

This was a dirt path through thick woods. Nearly every stretch was either uphill or down, and massive roots, branches, and tree trunks crisscrossed the path constantly, some of them as high as Rodney’s waist.

At first, Rodney embraced the challenge. The first two miles flew by before he needed to take a break. He waited until he passed the halfway mark before stopping for lunch and noticed the first throbbing pains in his feet and legs.

By mile 4, he was winded and hurting and needed to stop every half mile for a rest. By mile 5, he was stopping every few hundred yards. He never thought he would reach mile 6.

Finishing the hike after that was a dream from another universe.

Finally, as he sipped at his last few ounces of water, Rodney’s hike tracking app told him he had completed the sixth mile.

Up ahead, up a seemingly insurmountable hill, Rodney saw a clearing. As he climbed closer, he realized the trail intersected with a road.

Saved! Worst case scenario, Rodney thought, he could wait for a car to come by and ask for a ride back to the trailhead, where his truck was parked.

He gathered his wind and pushed the last 30 steps to the road before he saw the sign: a green metal sign mounted on a perforated steel post. White block letters spelled out MAINTENANCE ROAD.

Rodney examined a single pair of tire tracks, barely visible, nearly covered with leaves. Nobody had driven this road for weeks.

This was no rescue.

He slumped to the ground in the middle of the road and allowed his backpack to slip from his shoulders.

Minutes passed, or it could have been hours. Rodney just sat, staring at his own feet, resting against the lumpy backpack. He listened to his own breathing, the only sound besides distant bird calls, as he felt the sun beat down on his sweat-soaked shirt.

Then he sensed movement in front of him, on the road.

He looked toward the movement. Ten yards away he saw a flash of gray fur, nearly blending in with the unpaved road, but only nearly. As his eyes focused, something emerged from the deep folds of his mind, something he picked up from a zoology major he tried to bang in college by helping her study: Peromyscus maniculatus. A deer mouse.

The little mouse sniffed the ground. It was only a few inches long, its tiny body dwarfed by disproportionate, translucent ears. As Rodney leaned closer, the mouse sensed his movement and looked toward him. It didn’t scurry off like Rodney expected. Instead, it stared back. A second later, it started to move.

Toward Rodney.

It came on fast - not a sprint, in human terms, but a jog. It didn’t stop until it was mere inches from Rodney’s feet. Rodney stared at it. They stared at each other. The mouse’s ears twitched and its whiskers flicked. Then it reached tentative paws toward Rodney and climbed up on his leg.

Instinctively, Rodney reached a hand out. The deer mouse sniffed at his fingers. The word rabies passed through Rodney’s mind. But he felt no fear whatsoever. Only calm.

Only calm - Rodney realized he didn’t even feel pain anymore.

Carefully, he reached backwards toward his backpack and unzipped it. He rooted inside and pulled out his last snack, a crumpled packet of dollar-store trail mix. Rodney gently tore it open and fished out a raisin. He placed it on his palm and held it out to the mouse. But the mouse didn’t take it and scurry off; he climbed into Rodney’s hand, picked up the raisin, and sat back on his haunches to dine.

Rodney could feel the vibrations of the animal’s chewing up and down his arm. He watched wide-eyed as the little creature chomped around the edges of the raisin, looking for the softest bits, tiny flakes of shrapnel falling onto his hand.

After it was done, the mouse pooped and peed right in his palm. Rodney didn’t even mind. The mouse looked Rodney in the eyes one last time, then scurried back down to the ground and skittered toward the tall grass of the forest.

He exhaled for the first time in what seemed like minutes, and when he inhaled, a new vigor filled him. He wiped his hand on his sweatpants, grunted up from the roadway and dusted himself off, then re-shouldered his backpack. Rodney lifted his leaden feet and moved forward on the trail, and minutes later, through bleary eyes, he could just make out, through the trees, the glorious outline of his truck parked at the trailhead.