Summary

Dunbar is climbing the trail in the woods. It is a couple of hours into his hike. He has been alone for some time now. His mind is starting to be affected by the loneliness. It is also a labor-intensive climb for an eighty-year-old man: steep and snowy. At one point, the path crosses through a stream. Dunbar has to cross a bridge of flat stones. He pauses in the stream, frozen by how suggestible his mind has become. He finds himself staring at the lichen, or algae, on the stones and in general, thinking strange thoughts.

As he stands on the stones, facing downstream, he watches the glassy water spilling over the rocks and tumbling into a foamy pool before him and feels that the pool of water is flowing through his mind, washing away his troubled thoughts. At the same time, the...