A tendril of fog snakes through the trees, a white wisp that merges, almost imperceptibly, with the untrodden snow.  A cobblestone path leads inward from the park's edge, from the hustle and roar of the city, toward the deep silence of trees.  The sounds of the city fade, all sounds recede, the silence sneaks up from behind the trees and is suddenly everywhere.  The path wanders without destination through the gloom.  Low in the sky, the winter sun gives light but little comfort, its feeble rays further emaciated by the press of the trees and the swirl of the fog.

            The fog presses in, walling the path, blocking off the playground that appears to the right and the meadow that opens up to the left.  A light breeze that sends shivers twists the fog into a finger of white, now rising from the stream as it meanders across the path and becomes the path.  The stream, the river, sings as broken glass, the ice grinding and churning in a growing race, as the evergreens slide past on the bank.  Ahead, a curve and a roar, and the banks have matured into cliffs too high to climb, too sharp to grasp.

            The curve unbends and the river shifts to a cataract and for a moment, everything is suspended on the cusp between flying and falling.