The water was cold at first, then warm, then everywhere at once. Now the air moves differently across my skin — lighter, electric. My paws find purchase on hardwood they forgot they knew. The house has become a circuit and I am completing it at velocities that surprise us all. The dampness behind my ears carries soap and something else — freedom, perhaps, though that seems too grand a word for what is simply the sudden, undeniable need to prove that all four legs still work exactly as intended.