Stepping through the snow, along this white mountain street and there are footprints all around and I am thinking about 猪 (you might be thinking ‘wow, another snow themed-post’, among other things).

I’ve got this homemade spear in my right hand, my other hand alternates between the left pocket and supporting the camera strapped around my neck. There is a healthy volume of adrenaline too.

I feel my eyeballs dry and bulbous, my mouth wide, my nostrils flared, my body poised, my brain is sponge.  The snow muffles sound doesn’t it? Standing still, I sense a kind of resonance.  I try to stop remembering The Devil’s Footprints, an old story that fascinated me as a youth: ‘The Devil’s Footprints is a name given to a phenomenon that occurred in Devon, England, in 1855: after a light snowfall, trails of hoof-like marks appeared in the snow, following primarily straight lines for over 100 miles. The footprints were so called because some people believed that the footprints were the tracks of Satan, as they were allegedly made by a cloven hoof.’

I’m looking at myself in a circular mirror and I see that my hat is at an awkward angle and my turn-ups have snow in them.

‘On the night of 8-9 February 1855 and one or two later nights, after a light snowfall, a series of hoof-like marks appeared in the snow. These footprints, measuring 1.5 to 2.5 inches wide and eight inches apart, continued throughout the countryside for a total of over 100 miles, and, although veering at various points, for the greater part of their course followed straight lines.  Houses, rivers, haystacks and other obstacles were travelled straight over, and footprints appeared on the tops of snow-covered roofs and high walls which lay in the footprints’ path, as well as leading up to and exiting various drain pipes of as small as a four inch diameter.’  Explanations include: hoaxers,

a mouse, a weather balloon, chinese whispers, a kangaroo; all unsubstantiated.  I’m no longer concerned with 猪 because I can’t stop thinking about kangeroo’s.

My breath is raggedy and gassy.  I’ve walked a long way from the car that I parked on the side of the road on the way up when it got too snowy to use a vehical without the proper requirements for snow.  How far is this 銅山?  Around the next corner I imagine.

But this particular straight section in front of me doesn’t feel right.  I trust my instincts and I’m suddenly walking back the way I came.  I see my own footprints and the same animal tracks and I notice another set of marks that have appeared.  Kind of like drag marks, like clothing being dragged through the snow, but lightly.

They end abruptly in the middle of the snow.  And then my ears start to make a high-pitched noise and I feel this pressure on my whole body.  Black fibres are falling onto the snow around my feet.

Have you ever had your fortune told using tea leaves?  Here you go: