Wild encounter

The morning commute to the office transects a relatively wild area of state forest lands. This morning while multitasking the phone, the coffee mug, the radio news, and the sleep inertia brain cells, a large animal crossed the highway up ahead. For a second it appeared to be just another white tail deer flirting with disaster. But in an instant it became very clear that it was no white tail. The coat too light, the gait too bouncy, the tail, The Tail, a big long bushy tail !!  A wolf had crossed my path.
Brakes applied, the car came to a full stop on the right shoulder of the road, while the big grey wolf stopped on the opposite side to look my way. We gave each other a long stare, eyes locked, fully connected in some primitive embrace of consciousness.  I knew, as I fumbled for my camera on the passenger seat that a photo attempt was never going to become reality, and so the wolf turned and walked off  across the snow, swallowed by the birch and cedars. The whole encounter was over in half a minute, maybe less.

The further events of the day seemed fairly unimportant.