Wide Eyes For Everything

Hills are okay.
They have an easy goal: get to the top, eye the view, then it’s downhill, legs follow gravity. On the flat, goals are the next tree, the next corner, always a succession, not like the one easy hilltop. Flat running is not my favourite.
Today, between markers of gate and tree, the road is obstacled with iced mud, the air uncomfortably chill. I lose grip, underfoot and in mind, breathing cold irregular air, shoulders tensed solid. Unsure if I am shivering or shaking, a screaming noise arrives, or I think it does; I am dropped in fear and sinking.
At the point where sanity seems to have deserted me, Dog leaps into the hedge, flushes out a fox with a mad rabbit in its jaws. Fox drops Rabbit, Dog is making a decision, Rabbit runs, right across my boggled path, into a hole, Fox streaks up the lane, Dog chooses: she chases Fox; returns shortly, tail in a wag spin.
‘Can you do that every time I doubt myself?’ I ask her.
We round the corner and run. Dog has her nose to the hedge: I have eyes, wide eyes for everything.

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