Toadychan

      She tucks her hair, still damp from her shower an hour before, behind her ear as she sits down, placing her notebook and camera beside her on the step. She pauses for a moment, inhaling the crisp spring air, warm and sweet and so unlike the piercing winter chill of a few days earlier, and takes in the view she hasn't properly seen in nearly a year. A bird flies overhead, its shadow momentarily startling her, before landing a few feet in front of her. It makes her smile as it picks at the dried brown leaves on the ground, and she reaches for her camera. The robin ignores her as she takes its picture, feeling no threat with the distance b