A Step Outside

Having spent so many quiet days walled behind cedar blocks and coasters indoors, I decided the time had come to venture past the front door into the wider morning. I slipped through the lower gap of the screen door and navigated onto the dry, splintered planks of the front porch. Resting against the sturdy leg of an old wooden garden bench, I discovered a broad, dried pinecone and an empty wooden thread spool. I rolled the heavy cone up against the bench leg, jamming the spool tightly beneath its base until neither piece budged an inch. Elevated safely above the courtyard pavement, I sat beside my anchored outpost, watching the street stir.