I split my heel somehow. Lord knows how. It’s not as if I walk so much. I rub it with Vaseline and put a Band-aid over it. The bandage slides off. I had too much Vaseline. I dry my heel off and put another bandage on it. It’s not so much that I’m worried about my heel getting infected or that I think a bandage will help heal my heel. I wanted the extra padding. I put on thicker socks for the same reason.

Socks get Murph excited. She knows that means its time to go out. I try walking. Better but still painful.

It’s warming outside. And I think about going out without a jacket but I give that idea up. No. It’s not that warm yet. I decide between two different pairs of shoes. Both are muck-spattered. I think deliberately about cleaning them off. At least I should clean the ones I’m going to wear. But they’ll just get dirty so I don’t bother. I go into the kitchen. There are still about three cups of coffee turning cold in the coffeemaker. I need a bag for Murph. I grab one and jam it into my jacket pocket. I take a second. She’s had some digestive problems and she’s probably Ok. But every time I help myself to just one, I need two. It’s never happened that when I take two, I need two.

Do I have everything I need? I check at the door. Two bags. My keys. Murph’s leash. She’s already hopping by the door. I leave and close the door behind me. Murph is already down the hall and around the corner. I don’t leash her until I get downstairs. The stairwell. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty-five steps. I push the inside door without turning the handle and walk straight into it, my arm crumpling up in front of me. That never happened before. I look around to make sure nobody saw. Murph looks at me confused. Something is wrong. But I turn the handle and open the door and everything is back just so.

There’s an ugly handmade sign on the outer door that advises me to watch my step. The sign was here when I moved in. I push the door open. Murph runs out into the light of day. I walk out ashen into space blinking.

Murph sniffs about, hunting squirrels that aren’t there. She runs to the pole at the end of the driveway and sniffs there. Sometimes she pisses there. Sometimes she doesn’t. This time she doesn’t. We cross the street. She knows I let her have the leash, I let her run ahead of me about half way across the road. At the maple tree she waits to see if we are going straight, continuing down the sidewalk to the park, or if we are cutting up between the townhouses where there is a small hillside and a small green space. Well, not green right now. Brown, mainly. I think it through. The park is dryer. Murph leads me to the park. She runs around the tangle of brambles looking for a squirrel. She saw one a few days ago and she is intent to find one. I let her sniff out a squirrel for ten, fifteen minutes. She is tireless. I have unzipped my jacket. I try to suck up as much of the smell as I can. The dirt, the wetness, the earth revived. It’s a fertile smell. The sky, meanwhile, is a beautiful clear blue.

Murphy can discover no squirrel. She does her dance and relieves herself finally which I pick up in a crinkling white grocery bag. I think about sitting on the bench but the ground by the bench is muddy and for my five minutes of bench sitting will mean that I will have to bath my dog. I don’t like that math and we head back. I didn’t need the second bag. I never do when I have one. I make a visual note of the withering snow banks. Next time I come out, I want to be able to see that they are smaller.

We come in the front door and I check the elevators. Then take the stairs.

Unpacking means taking off my jacket and muddied shoes and washing Murphy’s feet. I slip Murph a cookie and microwave another cup of coffee.

SS