#agency

A few days ago, after work, I ran home, got sweaty, got tired, got peaceful, and then took my dog for a walk through Wellons Village.

This was not an expedition.

I was not seeking danger, revelation, personal growth, or anything else that could later be packaged into a lesson. I had Solveig on the leash and nowhere in particular to be. She was in charge of navigation, which meant we were following the ancient canine transportation system of turning toward whatever smelled most promising.

This often takes us into Wellons Village.

Wellons Village has a reputation. People get shot there. Things happen there. I know this.

It is also ten minutes from my house, and Solveig knows, with the absolute certainty of a field biologist, that people in the area drop food on the ground.

So we go there.

That afternoon I was feeling remarkably good. The run home had burned off whatever static had accumulated during the workday. I was tired in the clean way. The world seemed basically acceptable.

Then Solveig found a chicken bone.

We were standing at an intersection waiting for the light to change. At the base of the crossing pole, amid the usual urban archaeology of wrappers, grit, and things a dog should probably not eat, there it was.

A chicken bone.

I was dealing with this important development when a man I had passed a minute earlier came back toward me.

I had barely registered him the first time. He had been talking to himself, or perhaps to somebody who wasn't there, or perhaps to the universe at large. In that part of town, this did not qualify as breaking news.