[ WP ] You get lost driving to a friend 's new place . When you check Google Maps , your location is a blank area labeled `` Abandon hope all ye who enter here . ''

I was having a mid-life crisis. It was weighing on me, and I decided to go for a long walk to visit an old friend. He'd just moved to a new place, to a side of the county I had n't been to before, and as luck would have it I somehow lost the beaten path and ended up walking through a dark patch of woods. 
 
 
 I looked all around but it was just brambles, trees, bushes and the occasional nasty-looking patch of poison ivy. Everything seemed to have thorns and the overall effect was... spooky. I do n't like to think of myself as no kind of scaredy-cat, mind, but it was hard not to feel a little nervous in a place like this. I just kept walking. 
 
 
 Eventually I saw a break in the trees, some light ahead. Through the clearing I could see the mountains in the distance, the sun shining bright on the snowy tops. Feeling better, I took a deep breath and walked more cheerful like toward the way out. 
 
 
 Suddenly I heard a twig snap. Then another. Footsteps. There was some kind of critter heading my way - then all at once I looked up ahead and saw a giant mountain lion, eyes bright and shining, looking right at me like it was fixing to have me for dinner, crouching down low and ready to pounce. 
 
 
 *SHIT! * I turned tail and started running as fast as I could go, not stopping to look behind me but listening to hear the big mountain cat's paws crunching on leaves and twigs as he ran after me. This is not how it was supposed to end, I thought to myself. Everything I'd ever regretted, every way I'd ever done someone wrong, all my sins and misdemeanors, everything rushed through my mind in those few moments as I ran back into the forest. 
 
 I was dimly aware of running past a fence and a mailbox, but suddenly I heard a rifle shot ring out, then another, and another. I pulled up to a dead stop, wondering if I'd been shot, but instead I saw the mountain lion tearing away scared out of its mind, limping on one leg. I turned and suddenly saw an old man standing by the fence, appeared out of thin air like a ghost. He was very old, wise looking, with a rifle in his hand and a straw hat, decorated all round with a ring of green leaves, on his head. 
 
 
 `` Evening there, friend,'' the man said amiably. `` Seems you've lost your way.'' 
 
 `` Can you help me?'' I gasped, out of breath. `` I'm lost, I do n't know where I am...'' 
 
 It suddenly occurred to me to look on my phone and find a map. I'd just gotten one of those new smartphones, and I knew it had a program that you could use, it would link up with a satellite and tell you exactly where you were. But when I opened the app, I fussed with it a little and could n't see anything. Just a blank open space and what must have been some error message, but I got this phone secondhand and whoever had it first must have spoke a different language, because I could n't understand the words on the screen: *Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'intrate. * 
 
 
 I looked up at the old man, who was standing there patiently, watching me, knowingly. 
 
 
 `` Who....where....'' 
 
 
 The old man extended his hand formally, and I took it hesitantly. `` Name's Virgil,'' he said politely. `` You might say, you're exactly where you need to be. Come with me, and let's go for a walk...'' 
 
 
 
 
 [ Apologies to Mr. Alighieri. ] 
 

