Tracks in the snow (A short play)

A snowy New England morning tells stories about who walks our trails.

(Preamble)

This week we had the perfect storm for capturing tracks in the snow.  It snowed a bit, then rained a bit then froze.  These layers of precipitation created layers of snow that were perfect for capturing the footprints of all the things that walk and scurry across my trails.

The weather created the equivalent conditions to wet cement at the playground where children press their handprints and scratch their names for future generations to see and perhaps wonder about their stories.

As I was out running with Ollie in the woods, we were able to stop and look at the tracks of the creatures we share the trails with.  Join me now as I take you through a journey of discovery.

(Sounds of feet crunching and breathing)

(stopping)

“Hey, so we’re out running in the woods in the morning.  It’s just about freezing and there is this wonderful layer of snow that has perfectly captured all the footprints…and there are lots of tracks captured.

For example, look at these tracks here – you can see the two front paws close together and the bigger hind paws behind as they hop across the trail from one bramble to the next.  These are, of course, bunnies.  Very common and we see them all the time.

Likewise, we can also see the squirrel’s tracks here.  Like a rabbit track but smaller with claws and lighter.  And we can also see the little tracks of field mice as they wander about their small world.

Let’s keep going.”

(Sounds of feet crunching and breathing)

(stopping)

“Ok, so…Here’s another common track.  It’s a set of heart shaped hoof prints.  Two lobes of the hoof.  This would be your white-tailed deer.  You can see two or three of them came through here and were pawing at the snow to get to acorns underneath.

Interestingly you can also see the coyote tracks following them.  It’s that winter cycle of life.  Coyote tracks are like dog prints except they tend to be more in line and have better defined claws.

(amusement in voice)

These I can tell are clearly coyote tracks because the little rocket boots he was wearing have the ACME stamp on them and there’s a pile of burnt fur from the explosion.

Heh, heh, moving on…”

(Sounds of feet crunching and breathing)

(stopping)

“We can also see I’m not the only human on the trails.  We can see here a good example of the duck-footed pedestrian.  Looks like a woman’s size 10 boot with some sort of small dog.

Look here how she has to dig in her heels to get traction because the boots have no tread.  She knows these boots are bad in the snow but they’re cute and they go with her hiking outfit and you never know when you might run into a heartbroken prince from a small, unheard of principality who needs to be married by his 30^th birthday or he can’t take the crown.

The dog looks fairly well behaved.  Probably a rescue mix of some sort so she can lord her virtuousness over her rivals at book club.”

(Sounds of feet crunching and breathing)

(stopping)

“Here’s another set of tracks.  You can see it’s a guy running – from the stride length.  But, look at how there’s no tread pattern and the snow is thrown up in chunks and ridges.  That’s a guy wearing yaktrax.

Seems to be about a size 12, maybe 5’11, 175 pounds.  You can see by the nuance in the stride here that his kids love him, he’s respected at work and his wife is a bit of a shrew, but he’s resigned to work on his relationship with renewed vigor in the new year.”

(Sounds of feet crunching and breathing)

(stopping)

“Here’s quite an interesting set of tracks.  Looks like four people coming up from that roadside turn in.  Two adults and two teenagers I’d say.  The adults wearing sensible, but non-descript, generic hiking boots.  The teenagers in off-the-shelf sneakers that they will grow out of or destroy in a month.

You can tell by the foot strike pattern that it’s a family trip.  Most likely after an early church service. The mom is anxious and sad. The dad is disconnected and distant. One of the teens slips and slides along, wasting energy, trying to hide the fact that he’s hung over from he and his friends stealing a bottle of Cutty Sark from the back of dad’s liquor cabinet.

The other one is dragging one foot petulantly as if he never wanted to come today and why won’t anyone ever listen to him anyhow and just wait, you’ll see, you’ll be sorry.

(pause a beat)

Oh, and look!  Over here! A nice big flock of wild turkeys came through! I love turkey tracks.  First because they look like little velociraptor footprints and second because they are clearly mental.  They just go in all different directions like a chaotic cloud, and cut an aimless swathe of dinosaur tracks through the forest.

(Sounds of feet crunching and breathing)

(stopping)

“Here’s something new.  Someone out in snowshoes.  There’s only 3 inches of hard snow, so not really snowshoe material.   But they got them for Christmas and just had to try them out before hanging them on a hook in the stairwell and forgetting about them for another 12 months.

They didn’t ask for snowshoes.  The wife thought it would be a nice gift, you know, maybe get them off the couch and get a little exercise?  Because, let’s face it you’re not getting any younger and you’ve put on a few pounds.

You can see here as the track climb this little hill that although snowshoeing sounds great in theory it’s actually quite a lot of work and dammit, doesn’t he work enough already?  This is taking longer than it should and he’s not going to be able to get some beer for the start of the game…”

(Sounds of feet crunching and breathing)

(stopping)

“Now here’s something really interesting… It’s a large track… jeez! Probably 8 inches across the paw, wit 2 inch claws.  That’s crazy.  This can’t be right.  We don’t have any grizzlies in our …

(Sound of bear attack and screaming.)