There was an acorn on the pavement. I stepped on it, and it kinda cracked. I bent over, picked it up and tossed it under the Oak Tree on the other side of the car — one small contribution to the mulch.
As I turned to walk to the office building door, a breeze came up, and a few leaves swirled around my feet. The cool air and the blue sky and the sound of dry leaves skipping on the pavement suddenly pushed my brain back in time. I was in the Midwest. It was a Halloween evening in the 70s. I had just left our house and walked across the lawn. Leaves blew about my feet. I was…
And then just as quickly, I was back in Texas again. It was 2016. And I was walking in to work from the parking lot.
I looked up. There was a black crow sitting on the edge of the building looking down at me. It cawed once.
“I know,” I said. (I’m not sure why I say that to animals, but that’s what I said.) It cawed twice more and then flew off.
I walked inside, climbed the stairs, connected my laptop and went to make coffee.