A bench isn't real until someone sits on it-

I drove to my dance class right after work, to find my dance teacher and his wife sitting side by side (slumped a bit, dancers though they are) on a park bench right by their front door. Both of them were smoking. It was one of those wooden and wrought iron park benches, very nice looking, so I said, "That's a nice bench. I've never seen it before."

"It's been here about six weeks," my teacher answered.

"Oh, really? I thought there was usually a car here," said I.

"No. Haven't you seen Nikolai sitting on it? It's been here about six weeks."

Well, I had never seen anyone sitting on it before, and that's probably why I didn't notice it. After all, I thought, one could say a bench isn't real until someone sits on it.

That thought made me smile inwardly. It might make a great story - but then I thought: George MacDonald has done it before, with the invisible floor in "The Princess and the Goblin." Still, it might be worth doing again, with a different twist. Maybe I'll try it.

On a more serious note, when I drove back on the highway, a bird flew out right in front of my car. People in my family have teased me for braking for birds, and even butterflies - "They have wings!" my sister said once. But I wish I could have braked for this one. As I said, I was on a highway, though a small one, and there was traffic on every side of me; there was nothing I could do. I slowed as much as I could and must actually have shut my eyes for a split second, but I heard a slight thud as the poor little thing hit the car. Sometimes I hate cars. I hope the poor thing was killed outright, or else not seriously hurt; I hate to think of it suffering and then dying with a broken wing or some such injury. But there was really nothing I could do. I have never hit an animal with this car before, and, as cars go, I love it, but it's still an instrument of death. All cars are, IMHO. Poor bird.