I’m slogging knee-deep in mud and grass that’s turned yellow from drowning in days and days of rain. I’m clenching my jaw so tight that the dentist told me I need to stop or I’ll damage my gums. Whatever. There’s something at the other side of the field. It moved and I think it had three eyes. Reminds me of that cougar I found looming outside on the porch. It had six ears, two tails, three eyes. I never saw it again.

The rain is like blood in my lungs and I hope that maybe, just maybe, I’ll live to tell my kids about that time where I marched through the field just to wrestle some cougar into the mud. But the rain keeps coming and I’m going to die here. I’m crying and drowning in rain. I’m on my knees and wrist-deep in mud now. I’m infuriated.

The breeze picks up, and in the process my head. I breathe it in, on it I can taste more than blood. I can taste miles of adventure and future. On the breeze is my potential. On the breeze comes the cougar. It lowers its head and blinks its third eye. It stares into me and probes all my intrusive thoughts, over and over, sinking its claws into my heart. It is not my enemy. It is me.