The light from the sun almost blinded him, and the intensity in his forehead made him squint against the sun’s rays. The walk to the woods was unadventurous, on the main road past the uniform brick houses and the occasional colourful garden, which he thought would’ve been even more impressive in the height of summer when in bloom, and their colours were intensified. Down past, a new build of houses was a country lane, and the entrance to the woods, he had been once before with a friend, but it had been a while. Inside there were a lot of little winding paths and arrows to follow, supposedly a little more civilized than just an overgrown trail into a wild wood.

Keith couldn’t believe it, he had lived close by for 7 years and had never noticed it, he never even knew it was there. The entrance from this end wasn’t obvious and unless you were looking for the arrow signs you probably would walk straight past them.

The corridor of old trees loomed overhead, the trunks were thick and the branches gnarled, like a tall crooked but proud rugby player, but more tanned with the strong sun. The leaves were bright green and the sun darted through them, making shadow patterns over the path, he couldn’t resist taking photos with his phone of the tree shadows.

Keith had with him all the trappings for a day out hiking, including a picnic, binoculars, and walking shoes, he was going to enjoy himself today, with no work, no distractions. Just peace and quiet, the only sounds he wanted to hear were birdsong, despite the sound of distant cars on the main road. When living on the edge of a city this was a little slice was heaven.

Every so often Keith would stop and take photos or get out his binoculars to spy at birds on branches or a bush. As he was savouring a quiet moment and just listening to the birds, attempting to work out which one was singing a man with a dog came walking towards him, owner like the dog was short and stout, although the owner had a bit more belly on him and a loud Hawaiian shirt and shorts combo, he was also talking loudly on his mobile via blue tooth and not watching where he was going.

Keith smiled a ‘hi’ and was completely ignored by the man as he walked past with the dog tottering at his heels, Keith just sighed, what was the point? As he delved further into the woods more and more paths appeared, going off at funny angles or disappearing completely into hedges and trees.

There was a clearing up ahead which he didn’t notice on his first trip, it was round with a  fire pit in the middle and paths branched off from it, 6 paths in total, strange he thought. Keith thought it was a good time to have a picnic, so he got out his sandwiches and flask and sat on an impressively big flat rock by the fire pit, he tried to see with his binoculars where the paths led but couldn’t, too much foliage.

After his lunch and coffee, he now had to decide which path to take, picking one to his left or his right? he decided left and picked one out at random, he figured at least he would get his cardio in as this one was uphill. Walking he felt like he had made the right choice, with lots of photo opportunities and rare-looking plants to catalogue. The trees were different up here from the main path he came in on, they were more straight up, like a centurion standing to attention, with a busby of green leaves on top. At the top of the hill was a beautiful meadow, it was teaming with life, from bees to butterflies, what fantastic photos he would have. Then something on his phone caught his eye, a photo of the fire pit circle flashed up, that’s weird he thought, he didn’t remember taking that one, after a few seconds it had disappeared and he thought nothing of it.

Looking around the meadow he couldn’t see a way around it so he started to slowly trek back down past the centurions. Back at the ‘circle’, there was something wrong, he could have sworn there were 6 paths, not 4 around the fire pit, odd definitely. Keith checked his phone, that circle photo wasn’t in his gallery, slightly creeped out by this he decided to turn right as if to go straight on from his original path, and he set off at a steady pace. After a while, he noticed that the bird song was absent and the trees had changed again, to big, chunky and mangled, the sort of tree you would see in a horror film, things would either be crawling out of it or be trying to eat you. His imagination was on high alert, no wonder since his environment kept changing around him. He felt on edge as he was tentatively walking into the unknown.

Another clearing loomed up ahead, another ‘circle’. Keith couldn’t stand this, this time there were just 2 paths, the one he was on which went off to the right or one that went left, he decided to go left, slowly. His head was hurting and one of the few things he forgot was to pack painkillers, damn.

There was a stream at the bottom of the hill with a bridge over it, so he filled his empty flask and decided instead of walking over the bridge to follow the stream instead, maybe it came out to civilization. After walking through it for a while he saw a path parallel to it not far from the bank, thinking it would be nice to feel his feet again he walked up and got out of the water when a short stout dog trotted up to say hello, looking up he saw that guy again, still on his phone looking like he was talking to himself, ‘Hey, mate’ Keith yelled startling the man, ‘ Sorry, but where’s the main road, I’m going round in circles?’. The guy stopped talking to himself and looked over at Keith.

‘ Turn round, go back to the bridge, go over it and the main road is on the other side of the museum’

‘Cheers’ Keith yelled back with a thumbs up, glad there were no more circles involved. He followed the man’s instructions and found the museum, with a sign about this one-off exhibition, ‘ The evolution of forests and its effects on the mind’, it even had a map of it. Keith just chuckled to himself as he walked back up the main road home. Checking his phone at his photo he was right he had taken some excellent ones, and yet something was still nagging at him just in that second the fire pit blazed brightly on his phone and his subconscious decided must go back.