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epitome of incomprehensibility
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I know what lurks under the scraggy tufts of grass on the hill. I know why furry Shiloh has to be dragged away from the holes burrowed in the soil, entrances that look like whorls in the tufted grass. He noses them, not catching more than a scent.
But today I saw one of you, a swift dark shadow across the white snow. Wind whirled around my elf-coat hood, wrapped around my head like a scarf but not quite covering my left ear. You were running one second, gone the next. Shiloh didn't see you, or he might have leaped, straining the leash and me.
And now that I know who you are, the weird whorls lose some of their eeriness.
...But what are you exactly? Field mouse? Vole? Something in the mouse family, and now I feel like I was when boss B. asked what kind of fruit I had, and I answered, "A small orange." Obvious, right?
B: laughs in Iranian. "Tangerine? Clementine?"
I looked at it. "I...I don't know exactly."
As a kid, they were Maroc oranges. (Yes, the Maroc oranges were kids.) Maroc from Morocco? In Iran, people are precise about citrus fruits. Like Russia with different words for light blue and dark blue. We are more than the news. We are more than languages, even. We are more than bad_boss_day and regrets.
Mom would think Westwood Hill creepier with the mice than without it. Mice! Mice everywhere! In the ground like oranges! Well, if oranges were potatoes.
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