Everyone slows down to look at Lily as I run along with her down the street.

Where are your other two, one neighbor asks.

Can't do all three, I tell him. The little pug always gets his own special walk meant for dogs with short legs.

In the woods, however, we all run with recklessness and laughter while racing our shadows that scatter with the leaves. I have my footholds where I skip from one large smooth stone to the jagged peek of another, across a fallen and crumbling tree and beneath hemlock bows where I crouch and trip on a root.

This morning my right hand slapped at the ground and saved me from a hard landing.

My ankles hate me, and I have twice picked and picked and sweat over slivers in my fingers lodged there with force when I tossed a stick.

She sleeps under the stairs where shadows cool her and the spiral steps wind over her head.

Tomorrow as I rush to favorite spots in the woods where I glimpse light reflecting off Lake Zoar reaching through the forest, I think of the strange impish and elusive things that folklore casts into the woods. Fairies and gnomes lurk behind trees and under stones. Why does a relaxed mind create unlikely things? Late Thursday as I close the bar I'll say goodnight to my own inventions. As I set the alarm I return the bar to the spirits.