A Tidy Sphere

A loose ball of heather-gray wool had rolled out into the open floor, leaving a long, winding tail behind it. I paused. The stray strand stretched across the smooth boards all the way back to the dark corner. Deliberate and slow, I stepped over the thread and braced my front feet behind the fuzzy sphere. With a steady push from the underside of my trunk, I began rolling it backward. The loose tail wrapped snugly back around the round ball, winding tighter with every quiet turn. I nudged it all the way to the side table leg, where it finally settled into a neat, motionless stop.