Unexpected walkies

“What are you doing?” asks a friend on IM.

“I think I'm gonna take Grom for a walk,” I reply. “He needs it. I need it.”

It’s Thursday.

Walkies are for Saturday and Sunday mornings. Not for weeknights.

Gromit knows this.

So hearing “How about walkies?” puts this What the Fuck look on his face that makes me laugh out loud for the first time all week.

I say it again. “Walkies? Gromit?”

The unexpected walkies get him every time.
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It’s one of those days where seeing the other side of the usual is so necessary.

So instead of heading north on the path, we go south.

Gromit is sniffing the new smells. I am enjoying the new scenery.

He glances back every so often to flash one of his standard Isn’t This GREAT? smiles.

Not far, Gromit's sniffing takes him down a path that veers off toward the river. A path I’ve never seen before.

Again, it’s that kind of night, so I follow.

We’re walking. Into the woods. Down a worn, dirt path. We are careful to step over the gnarled roots of overgrown trees. The only sound is the wind. The river, like a promise, is silent but constant through the trees.

Everything is so green and gorgeous and unexpected it occurs to me that we died in a car accident on the way to the park and that we’re in heaven and it would be perfectly okay if this forest just went on forever and ever amen.

We’re less than two miles from home but I have no idea where we are.

Better still, no one else knows where we are, either.

It's perfect.
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I am listening to: Staind – It’s Been a While
I am reading: Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
And I am: So much better now