Shimmering Dirt

The street light shimmered on the wet pavement, fighting against the darkness for control of my pathway. Raindrops pittered against the cold ground, shivering at the touch of themselves against a surface so rough. My feet quietly tapped down the short alleyway, keeping rhythm with the rains high C notes. A symphony played silently all around me, surrounding me and pushing me closer to the fence with the sleeping dog behind it. The dog that had no recollection of my previous walks past his territory, or the sound of my silent breathing as I sat miles from his 10 by 10 world. Footsteps led me to the edge of the gravel path, to a lake threatening to swallow me without as much as a please or thank-you. To the lake that beckoned for a simple midnight swim underneath the stars that danced on the surface of it's boundaries. Grass tickled the bottom of my bare feet causing a shiver to run down my spine and the mud to pull my toes in deeper.

The mud, so kind as to offer some respite for my blistered feet, the past sixteen hours were created to kill them, the floor was no longer allowed to be their resting spot, an area not large enough to lie in was their prison. The mud, was their heaven as they sighed in relief, just as water is the perfect bed for a jaded body, just as the weeds are the hairstylest for a knotted head.