A Rather Stubborn Route

I settled onto the lower rail of the weathered garden bench, tucking my paws quietly into my lap. Just inches away, an immensely ambitious snail had decided that scaling a cracked flowerpot was far superior to taking the flat stone path beside it. It proceeded at an agonizingly dignified pace, entirely ignoring the obvious dead end ahead. I watched with quiet fascination as it finally reached the broken lip of terracotta, its eye-stalks twitching with unmistakable indignation. To turn around after such a dramatic climb seemed rather humiliating, yet there was nowhere else to go. I remained quite still, letting it ponder its own stubbornness.