Tarin sat on the bench and secured the pad to the Velcro panel on his thigh.
The trail had widened into a shelf above the valley, enough flat ground for a bench, a waste bin, and, at the edge, a weathered metal plaque naming peaks he could already see. He had stopped because the place looked convenient.
He opened the terrain log.
He had made the last entry farther down the slope, where the path crossed a wash of loose stone. He read what he had written and laughed. He had described one harmless section as unstable scree with multiple route possibilities, which was technically true but sounded as if he had survived a rockslide rather than walked twenty meters around some loose river rocks.
“Multiple route possibilities,” he said aloud.
He was still smiling when he looked up.
Across the valley, a fold in the ground disappeared behind a stand of trees and returned farther along, almost where he expected it to. Something about the shape caught him.
A slight gathering through the chest. Attention narrowing without alarm. The awareness of having already moved before he understood why he had moved.
The same arrangement.
The smile remained for another second after the amusement had gone.
His hand stopped over the pad.
He had noticed.
He had changed course.
Or had he changed course because he wanted to notice?
Tarin shifted on the bench.
A moment earlier he had been leaning toward the pad, loose through the shoulders. Now he sat farther back. His mouth tightened slightly. He looked at the opposite slope as though the terrain might settle the question for him.
It did not.
It changed the temperature of what had happened.
He drew in a breath, held it, then let it leave in a long sigh.
His shoulders went with it.
For a few seconds he stayed there, looking across the valley.
A tiny black insect landed on the edge of the pad.
Tarin blinked.
The insect walked directly across the words multiple route possibilities, stopped at the screen’s bright margin, and tested it with two front legs.
Tarin watched.
It turned around.
“No,” he said. “That way.”
The insect ignored him.
Tarin brought his hand alongside the pad. The creature wandered onto his knuckle, paused, then lifted away into the sunlight.
He followed it until he lost it against the clouds.
When he looked back across the valley, the fold in the terrain was only a fold in the terrain again.
He looked down at the pad.
Under the last entry he wrote:
Stopped at the bench.
Then, after a moment:
Met a bug.
WE&P by: EZorrillaMc&Co.
Travel in Life 