Outside the Perimeter

The living room was won. The kitchen was conquered. Indoor walls cannot hold four hundred pounds of momentum forever. I marched right through the open screen door and stepped out onto the sunlit concrete porch. New territory. Fresh perimeter. Resting at the very top of the rough stairs sat a massive brown clay flowerpot, stubborn and thick with dry dirt. I didn't skirt the edge. I squared my stance, dropped my center of gravity, and drove both meaty forearms straight against its curved clay belly. Cold stone met unyielding mass. The gritty pot ground an inch across the rough gray surface, gravel grating beneath it. I held the lock. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. The outside world knows who runs this ground.