Day 13

this week has gone by fast, both for myself and the other staff it seems. i've been continuing to collect and edit several activity videos in preparation for this summer's use. for the first time, however, i have grown slightly discouraged with the matter of my office.

it is one of the farther ones from the main area and is at the foot of a mountain, which is nice and good, but it is also built inside a large, white tent where all the summer rallies and such will be held, meaning there's really no fresh air to supplement the dormant scent of new wood or no way to coax anymore light through the single window of my loft.

after dinner tim and i climbed this mountain next to the office. we sat upon the peak and constructed a small rock alter at the toppermost of the poppermost and observed the distant mainland mountains and talked about camp and life and such. this was suddenly interrupted by subtle, yet defined and consistent, twig-snapping and leaf-crunching in the lower area where we had come up. the padded steps grew steady and we crouched down to see if we could spot whatever was moving slowly closer.

the sun was starting to fall behind the tree line under our peak's perch and a cool dusk rose from the water below. i imagined a cougar pouncing from the shadows and onto my back or suddenly latching to the side of my neck as we looked down into the darkening forest. we began our decent that would inevitably lead us past the source of the prowling. before getting too far we both paused and counted to three and then shouted. i blew some shrill notes in my harmonica for good measure. then we sprinted down the rest of mountain, stopping only a few short times to observe fresh paw prints in moist earth as (imaginary?) cougars stared with yellow eyes from every windblown bush below and creaking limb above.