A winter's walk

By Mac Arnold
RTO Editor

"We walked to the mounds before the dawn. Upon the frozen snow our feet stayed, except for the occasional sunken missteps.

"It was at the turnaround point that I noticed tracks had followed mine from the previous night's adventure in the woods to the back 40.

"Augie, our black Lab, had stayed off to the sides for the most part and had not ventured up front. The tracks in question were canine but appeared somewhat smaller, so he was ruled out as the culprit.

"A momentary pause was taken under the black sky and twinkling stars. The sting from below zero wind chills started to put a bite on my cheeks ... a coyote? Perhaps.

"Possibilities of a four-legged stalker danced around my mind until I hung up the dog leash once inside the shelter of the garage."

-- An excerpt from Mac's Night Travels

OK, there is no such literary piece but it is good fodder for a future work.

Didn't even really think about it until today (Feb. 23) when my wife told me of her morphine-induced dream at the hospital last night, where wolves jumped out of the wall and began to pounce while she was trapped in a bed that folded up on her.

The missus is recovering after complications from gall bladder surgery in the former Mercy Medical Hospital in Monroe, which now is ProMedica Monroe Regional Hospital.

As I told her: she dreamt it. I lived it.

OK, not wolves. But maybe something.