Chance Meeting

 
We saw each other at the same moment. 
He froze. 
I froze, waiting to see when he would make his move.
The rain had let up a while ago and my walk had taken me here to this spot where the woods meets the tall grasses.
There he crouched, watchful, waiting for me to move along. 
He was handsome. A thick crest of hair on the back of his head rustled in the soft breeze left behind by the rain and his black eyes darted this way and that, which was rather disturbing.  I wasn’t sure where to look. The muscles in his legs were tensed, his feet firmly planted and I felt as if he was about to explode out of his stance. His tall, black tipped ears moved like the cupped hand the Queen of England waves while passing her subjects, almost compelling me to wave back. Suddenly he was gone.  One second he was there, the next the tall, wet grass had swallowed him up.
Curious as to how he managed this sleight of hand before my very eyes, I slowly approached where he had stood.  There at the knees of tightly wound bittersweet branches, compacted dead grasses and brown, wet oak leaves was a perfectly constructed passageway. Tufts of soft brown hair caught here and there on several brambles that wound through it.
Where did it lead?
How far to home?
At that moment I longed to be small and step through that passageway too.

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