Edward Mullany, On Reading

"I was in the park, reading a paperback novel, when the sky darkened, and one or two raindrops plopped onto my knee. 'Come on,' I said to my dog, who was sleeping beside me on the grass, 'if we don’t hurry, we’re going to get wet.' We started out of the park, me walking quickly at first, and my dog trotting, but slowed when I saw that the clouds had parted and that the raindrops I’d felt had not been indicative of further rain. We stood in the middle of a wide path, and I looked up through the branches of a leafy tree, while my dog sniffed the ground patiently, his leash slack. 'What are we doing?' I said to myself and to my dog, who looked at me for a moment before staring off at something he'd seen or thought he'd seen. The book I had been reading was a page-turner. I was enjoying it."

{Edward Mullany is the author of If I Falter at the Gallows (Publishing Genius, 2011).}