This could be a dream. Or was he dead and was this something after life?

There was a test he could make. He tried to remember having reached this point on the path. He turned around and looked back the way it came up the gentle slope of the hill. He couldn't remember having reached this spot at all.

There was another test. He used the edge of his shoe to scrape a line on the path. Then he got down on his haunches and studied the ground. There was no sign of his footsteps. But the ground was well packed.

He straightened up. There was no use just standing here, he decided. So he started walking, the way he had been facing originally.

Suddenly he thought of another test. Stopping, he went through his pockets. Everything was where it should be. His billfold held his identification cards and currency. He studied the currency. It was too perfect in detail to be a figment of a dream.

He shook his head in perplexity. Whatever had happened, it was beyond his grasp. Shoving things back in his pockets he started forward again.

The sky was blue, with billowing white clouds drifting lazily high above the treetops. Ahead there was the sound of water. Shortly he came to a foot bridge that spanned a small and turbulent stream.

The path followed the bank of the stream for a hundred yards, then turned sharply and cut through the woods. The trees seemed to be some kind of Maple. The ground was covered with short cropped meadow, as though cattle had grazed here. But there was no sign of movement anywhere.

But there was. Something small and black was drifting down toward him in the air. He stopped and waited until he could reach out and seize it between his fingers.

It crumpled at his touch. He rubbed it between thumb and finger, examining its texture. It seemed to be a flake of burnt paper, as though someone had tossed a piece of paper in a campfire, and a charred piece of it had floated away on the breeze.

He went forward more eagerly now. Undoubtedly someone was ahead of him. Probably on a picnic. He could find out from them where he was.

And there was a sensible explanation of things now. He had probably been thrown clear of the car and knocked out. That could have lasted for hours while he wandered through the woods.

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