The world was quiet, empty, and dark. At least it was to me ever since I had lost the ability to see and hear, rendering me even more insignificant in this universe. I spent most of my time sitting on my front porch contemplating what had been, and what could have been. This particular day I was reminiscing about the memories I had from the woods several hundred yards in front of me. I could not see the magnificent trees, or hear them whispering in the wind, but I knew they were there. The sweet smell of pine overwhelmed my only sense, telling me what my eyes and ears could not. Sadly I could not experience these woods again in person, but I could remember.

I was walking. It was wintertime and the vast landscape was covered in a blanket of snow. Snowflakes lazily fell to the ground, adding to the already knee-deep snow around me. Each flake was unique, none quite like another. But once they came to rest upon the ground they became insignificant. Their fate was predetermined before they began their journey down, down, down. Each one would become part of an enormous quilt, woven out of infinite minuscule threads. In the end none was better than another.
The enormous pine trees shot out of the ground, reaching for the sky, towering over my head. They were greater than everything else in this stark landscape, but despite their immense strength they were held down. The snow was a heavy blanket on their branches, halting their uninterrupted rise. They strived to be greater, but they could not. Their numbers were many, surrounding me on all sides, pinning me in. I continued walking at a brisker pace, looking down at the path that did not exist. I listened to the crunch of my feet in the snow, the birds whistling in the trees, the trees sighing in the wind. Quite abruptly the woods ended, and I was in semicircular clearing. My walking had brought me to the edge of the forest.
As I looked out I saw the mountains reaching into the clouds. Each individual snowflake seemed even more insignificant now. Each was just one small piece of an unfathomable puzzle. The trees were dwarfed by these huge mountains, whose peaks mocked their minuteness. The mountains stretched on endlessly, until I had to strain my eyes to see farther. Each one was a speck of paint in a beautiful frameless picture, stretching on forever.
I looked back at the trees, and in that moment I realized something was wrong. The sounds of the woods that I had grown accustomed to on my journey had ceased.
I listened carefully and at first I heard nothing. Then I heard it. “Crack, crack, crack”, each time getting louder and louder, the interval between each crack decreasing until it finally stopped.
I took one last look around, and then I fell through the ice, everything fading into darkness again.
I was sitting alone on my front porch. The world was quiet, empty, and dark.