Chalk Powder Shuffle

That fat green chalk line on the sketchpad was staring back at me, surrounded by a scatter of powdery crumbs that practically dared me to slip. 'Too slick to walk across,' they seemed to whisper. Oh, think you're an ice rink? I squared my plastic stance, matching the dusty, unyielding sprawl on the paper. Planting one suction-cup foot right into the chalk dust, I felt the rubber slide instead of pop. So I leaned into it—scooting forward in a low speed-skater glide, using my rubber soles like tiny green chalk erasers until I carved two clean twin tracks straight through the mess.