Toni’s Fantasy-1

The last days of summer were here, the mornings cool enough for a light jacket. Richie was at work and Toni had no patients until after three so she packed a lunch, sandwich, apple and a bottle of water into a small backpack and set off to walk the woods behind her house.

Toni loved a forest and stopped noticing how the light filtered down through the trees; she took deep breaths taking in the mossy dampness of the leaves. She’d been walking for some time not really paying attention to where she was going but with a sense of where she was. She stopped at streams, picked up rocks and odd acorns. Feeling a little peckish she found a log and brought out her lunch. Careful to leave no trace of herself behind she stuffed the plastic bag back in her backpack and sat on the ground to finish her apple. Crunch, crunch…slush swish…crunch…swish. She stopped chewing and listened…there it was again…swish swalap…peering around the large tree trunk…nothing.

She rolled on her knees around the other side of the tree making no sound herself she strained her eyes…swalap…swish. Ah something there…she tried to make herself invisible against the tree trunk, red hoodie and all…it was a man not twenty feet away he was doing something on the other side of that big thick tree. He was dressed in a green full flowing shirt and narrow black jeans, tall black boots, his hair was long about his lightly bearded face, and he was breaking off dead branches from a thin fallen tree. Fascinated she watched him in silence…she’d never seen anything like him before. Her legs were beginning to cramp and she made a small movement…he heard her and looked up straight into her eyes. His eyes were green like his shirt. Toni dropped her apple.

Toni rose from her cramped position and looking back to where she’d seen the man…he was gone. Moving from behind her tree she walked over to where he’d been working…he had simply disappeared. Or had he…

"Hello," she called out. There was not a sound in the forest except the wind in the trees. "Are you real or is my imagination at work here?" she asked the forest…but it did not answer. Looking down she spied a piece of wood, odd shaped twisted by nature…was this what he was after she wondered thinking it a nice thing to have. Smiling she placed it against the tree trunk and moved away.

Toni sensed eyes were upon her and she didn’t hurry, she felt no fear from the forest man…perhaps he was fearful of her. She walked back to her backpack and picked it up stowing the half eaten apple in a zip bag. She stepped out on the path and looked back again. There was no sign of her forest man.

"Goodbye and good day," she called and walked back down the path from which she’d come. All the way home she kept thinking of him. He was a handsome sight, beautiful in fact in his green shirt…Toni smiled to herself…he’s my Robin Hood…of course he had no arrows…ah but they could have been hidden…yes that’s what it was. I won’t tell a soul…perhaps he wasn’t there at all…a fantasy!

The fantasy grew in her mind and by the time she got home and in the shower to get ready for work she was having daydreams about him…the mysterious…unknown…beautiful forest man…Robin Hood. What if she had fallen would he have come to her rescue…carried her away to his lofty aerie. He would be her secret…besides Richie wouldn’t believe her anyway…too many fanciful novels he’d claim. Toni was still smiling when she drove up to the clinic…nothing wrong with a bit of fantasy!