Lives Flutter

Yesterday, I sat on a bench writing and tried to think of Marina. A dark cloud started to form, so I stopped. There was a stray cat in the distance chasing a squirrel that ran under me. They both stopped. The cat just sat there, and the squirrel waited. It’s funny; I would have had my phone on me to take a picture, but I no longer take electronics with me when I jog. They drain quickly around me. I showed the heat depression they leave on my wrist to my mother once, how warm they feel even in my coat pocket, often with a "too hot to operate" message. I wonder if this is the same thing that causes birds to share a bench with me. They tend to crap everywhere, even on me (lol). This was how it was when I was a young child, around animals growing up, seeing their lives flutter because of hungry dogs or the fatigue from swimming in a basin whose water didn’t seem to help with their buoyancy. Exposure to life and death at a young age. Suffice to say, I think I’m neither the cat nor the squirrel in the beginning of this story, nor the bird that took a crap and left the bench. I was simply a man without electronics, writing on a bench, paying attention to the details of the day, and hopeful for more sunny days afterward. To the good days ahead, and the balance of whatever nature needs.