The room is cold, with winter sunlight coming in through a window behind me. The floor is hard and bare, and the furnishings sit geometric and inert, their purposes not clear. A cubic table is brown, a beige chair is shaped like a pyramid. The room reminds me of the room I had when I was two years old.
The forest is immense and silent. It is early evening, and the trees are dark against the sky. The trees are relatives of the maple, overgrown and fat, shelved with mushrooms. Cedars and wild shrubs, hawthorns and rowans grow between the larger trees.
Thick undergrowth of ferns and ivy tangle together over the muddy, indistinct trail. Rotting logs lie across it, red pine needles cushion it, and although many people use the path (the forest seems like a provincial park), it doesn't show much wear. It could have been cut last month.
The creek is fast and splashing. It is shallow, white-foamed, and it catches the light. There area many rocks in the water, sharp and smooth, and little tadpoles in the water. Rocks slick with slime stick out of the banks of the creek.
It is narrow, almost like a vase, made of tarnished brass. There is a handle on one side, and the vessel is potbellied near the bottom. Dirt is caked onto the bottom of the flask.
The key is old-fashioned, with a large head and a long shaft. It is worn and old, with the remains of a label scratched off. I think that it unlocks a chest or a box.