hat-hair

at that moment the breeze calmed and the furious chewing of a nearby squirrel paused. he tugged the bill of his cap a little lower over his face. an ant crawled up his arm and tip-toed out of view. it drew his attention to the rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing. largo - slowly, broadly. he squinted in the sun and caught a hint of an underlying beat. andante - the gait of a man without a care in the world, and a mild limp due to the pressure difference between the atria and ventricles. a syncopation. jazzy. my heart knows jazz. or does jazz know the heart?.

"i see a rabbit with a toque."

he turned to face her and some grass poked into his ear. she turned to face him when he did not answer. staring contest? she asked with her eyes.

"what?" she asked with her voice.

"how can you tell it's a rabbit if it's wearing a toque?"

she rolled over onto her side and pillowed her head with an arm. the waning sunlight back-lit her hair. time to take a mental picture.

"why do you always ruin my cloud animals?" she curled her legs. if the rabbit-with-a-toque looked down now, she'd be a question mark, dotted by the shoes that she had neatly slipped off earlier. but clouds don't know what question marks are, so the cleverness was lost on it.

"because you have an anger-dimple, and i like it. there it is," he poked her chin, left of her pout.

a pinch of grass suddenly found themselves flung onto his face. more than a few poked his face-up ear. matching. grass for brains is just fresh straw for brains.

the squirrel took to chewing again and the breeze swept away the grass and giggles in its wake. he turned back to face the sky. it really does look like a rabbit with a toque. he measured an allegretto now, the skip of a little boy who just won sixteen marbles, who had the pockets to carry them all. she grabbed his hat, filled it with grass and dumped it on his face.