Startling

I keep leaving way too late for the Honey Bee’s walk and finding myself in the forest in the dark without a flashlight. It’s spooky. We’re walking at dusk when supposedly the Mountain Lion’s hunt and we’re walking in pitch blackness – only the white tip of her tail to lead me onward. I hear things. In the rain last night mostly I heard the swoooosh, swooooosh of my rain gear and it left me with the impression that we were being followed. And once I really let that impression sink in, even though logically I confirm it’s very unlikely, I’m just left spooked until I get home. Coming upon the stables in the dark is equally haunting – the dim stable lights, the breathy banter of horses, the tap and scrape of their hooves, the mad dash of a stable cat coming out of nowhere and returning to blackness. And then out of nowhere a buck rushes by – startling us both.