It was snowing on the first day of school that year. The neighbourhood kids were throwing around the kind of early-season snowballs that have plenty of gravel hidden within.

He considered how his consciousness is the watcher of mind and body. Then he got distracted by a metaphorical squirrel.

On the way to brush her teeth after watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, she asked if it was all real. “No”. “But, if you drink blood do you get hypnotized?”

In hopes of keeping his shoes dry, he steadied at the lip of the asphalt walking path. His hand gripped the loop of the bungee cord leash, arm fully extended. The dog’s neck muscles contracted, and he leaned his weight outwards to drive his snuffling muzzle into the droplet-covered tall grasses. The elastic tension between them brought a momentary, perfect counterbalance of opposing wills, before they were pulled back together, and on their way again.

Everything had to have a purpose. That was possibly his biggest problem with getting started, he thought. What little time he had for creative output must surely contribute towards a neatly defined finished product? Defensible time spent. But he had held a meditation practice, and an exercise practice that had no goal beyond longevity. Why not a practice of writing? Not a journal, but a little bit of fiction every day with no audience, no metrics, no planned threads, no end in sight.