footprints in the snow

Snow makes the world just a little more interesting. Like the other day. I'd been to the grocery store, had purchased my items and bundled up before starting the cold trek across the parking lot. There was about an inch and a half of fresh snow on the ground. It's newness in the dark lot, with pools of light from the pre-meditatively placed light poles, gave a clean and mystical feel to the place. I strode purposely toward my car, but pulled up within sight of it...there were footprints in the snow. They seemed to waffle around my car's trunk a bit and then move off toward the door to the store from which I had not just come. A moments flash of self defense techniques flew through my mind, and I felt my chest cinch as my breath was held for the merest of moments. Those moments lasted only as long as it took me to recall that I had put those footprints there. I had, in fact, gotten out of my car, and put some things in my trunk before walking off to just the door toward which those footsteps were bound. I took a breath and grinned at myself. Shaking off the moment's panic I continued toward my car, and at the same time, got a better look at those footprints. I knew they were mine, yet something still told me they weren't. Perhaps it was how beautifully they were placed, the slight but graceful turn out of the toes, or just a residual effect from my instant of fear. Whatever it was, something between my rib cage and my belly button told me that those footprints, so surprisingly elegant, weren't mine at all. Maybe they were put there by some little winter sprite who artfully placed them just so before hiding behind another car to watch. Watch for me as I came across the lot. Watch my face for the moment I would look up and notice his handiwork. The moment in which I would see the simple beauty, even in a mundane parking lot, of a trail of size 8 footprints meandering through the snow.