County Fair Week One - Corn Maze

You glance back over your shoulder once as your turn to enter arrives, suddenly nervous despite your excitement. Seeing your mother wave brightly settles your stomach—no matter how lost you feel, she and your father and the fair staff will always know you're somewhere in the corn—and you bounce on your feet as you give her an air hug and turn back to the maze. Closing your eyes for one deep breath puts you even more at ease; the corn smells at once completely unfamiliar and just as green and alive as the temple orchard, and after a fun but long day hovering at the edge of overwhelmed from all the voices and new sights, the susurrus of leaves in the breeze is exactly what you need.

Now, you consider as you open your eyes, what is it that people say about mazes—keep your left hand on the wall? That seems too simple to be right, and you feel like there might be something about marking pathways, too, but that seems too complicated. Anyway, wouldn't marking the plants somehow also show other people your path? No, the hand idea should work. You reach out to the corn, drift your hand through the stalks to get used to the feeling, and take your first few steps.

Skch skch skrrrsh.

You stop. Slowly, then faster, you tap your toes up and down without lifting your heels, shuffle forward a few feet, then sweep one foot in a long arc around you, experimenting with drawing little crackles and long sighs out of the floor of dried stem bits and leaves. For a few minutes you try to dance along with the rhythm of the sounds the living corn makes, until you simply flop down and continue patting the dried ground around you with your hands, delighted and a little awed and soothed by the gentle warmth of speckled sunlight.



Ezra will be voluntarily taking the longest time rolls at each intersection!

|TZKznShk410-20

Life is tough, so you figure, why not have some fun sometimes? Travelling to other districts is something that always sounded like a good time to you, and participating in events like the county fair sounded really enjoyable as well. Looking at the list of events, you weren't really sure where to start at first, but eventually settled on the corn maze. It was something you thought you could handle, and that you'd also enjoy.

The group of people participating in this particular event were mostly young people, but that didn't bother you. Who ever said that people over the age of fifty weren't allowed to have fun?

When you enter the maze, you immediately start to try to rush yourself to go faster than you normally would. You've never been the fastest person, but you want to do your best, and you know that the amount of time this takes you is an important part of it all.

The other Izars would surely be rooting for you and Katelyn, so you'll both have to try your best. You've never really been one to stand out in the family, but you wouldn't mind getting the attention once in a while for something that's not losing your children to the Hunger Games.

You come to the first intersection and make your decision on which way to go, hoping you're correct.

You seem to be going faster now, which proves that despite being a lot less active than you should be in your everyday life, you're still at least somewhat in shape, as you're carrying yourself on your feet pretty sufficiently.

You're proud of yourself, which is a rarity. You can't see over the corn in the maze, but you still make your way around corners without miss-stepping, at least so far. You don't want to jinx yourself, though, so you don't say anything aloud. You can't hear much more than the crunch of grass and fallen leaves underneath your feet as you make your way through the maze.

That's a sound you've always loved. You've always loved the fall, too. It's your favorite time of year, mostly because it allows for things like this. You were excited for what would come of this race, but more importantly, you were enjoying yourself already. Being in nature- even if the maze was technically constructed by people- was your favorite thing that you ever got the chance to do, aside from maybe teaching your students.

Surely you had to be almost there, right? You split second decision at the last intersection made you second-guess your directional abilities. Perhaps you weren't doing as well as you thought you were. Well, only time would tell.

You hear other voices, as if you're getting closer to the end of the maze and you can hear people on the other side. One last turn, and you should be there, surely. There's no way it could take that much longer, right? You realize that your thoughts are just cycling through, getting more and more repetitive. You just want to get out of this maze so that you can think clearly again.