Some mornings, I do not encounter any other runners in the neighborhood. I hear only my own breathing as I travel along the leaf-strewn sidewalks, sadly aware that the mornings are getting cooler and are already practically dark as the year fades into the Winter Solstice. (The frequent cloud cover does not facilitate illuminated mornings, either.)
While approaching the last half-mile of my run this morning, I saw a young man making his way up the hill, his hands shoved into the pockets of his grey hoodie. He looked forlorn and preoccupied as he trod down the center of the sidewalk. I wondered how I ought to pass him.
A young woman interrupted my calculations. Wearing shorts, a long-sleeved tee, and earbuds (the latter, in my opinion, is an unwise choice at such an early morning hour), she was running perpendicular to my path. She, too, was preoccupied with something and did not realize that we would collide into each other at the street corner. I purposely slowed down to permit her to pass and raised my forearms to prevent myself from touching her. Still looking at something in the distance, she passed literally within inches of me.
Only after she passed me did she realize that I was there and, after seeing my form unexpectedly appear so close to her, she let out a piercing scream.
It wasn’t even 6:10am. Her scream was impressive.
Her body quickly jerked away from me and after she had retreated a few steps did she notice that her scream completely freaked me out. I myself jerked in the other direction. I’m sure there was some arm flailing involved. My pace staggered—as did hers—and she rotated around, still jogging, and offered a breathy apology: “I’m sorry… sorry… sorry!”
I kept running, though I was already starting to smile.
As I passed the young man, I looked at his face. He must have been able to see the other runner and I approach each other; he must have heard her terrified scream; he must have seen our mutual reactions as we reeled away from each other.
He looked sullen and completely unimpressed.
Gravity pulled me down the hill and I let myself laugh.
9 Oct 2007 |
Years ago, running in my neighborhood in a semi-rural area, early in the morning, typically being the only creature I would see other than the occasional opossum running across my path in the pre-light dawn, I started hearing a scream. A few seconds long and repetitive, it sounded otherworldly, something like the creature in alien, maybe a sick and perhaps rabid dog. It was a cold morning, maybe like now getting close to Halloween, no light in the sky except for a bright moon, and as I’m coming up the hill toward the direction of the scream, I’m facing the moon, so in spite of all the moonlight, I can’t see anything but silhouettes. My eyes darted this way and that, hoping to see the source of the sound, yet fearful of what it might be, so I’m also planning routes of escape, looking for a light in a house somewhere in case I needed refuge from whatever. No sign of anyone awake yet except me and the sound maker.
As I turn a corner, the sound gets more distinct, my sense of its origin more precise — it’s coming from a tree, the top of the tree. As I look to the top, the scream comes again and I see the slightest movement of a silhouette in the tree — it’s an owl, a screech owl.
Comment by Greg P | 10 Oct 2007 @ 6:41am
Remember my screams from the good old days?
If I scream here in the Bay Area, you could hear me in Seattle.
We’re studying hyperboles in class right now.
Maria says: I could listen to you scream all day long. And all night long. In fact, isn’t that I did back in the “good old days”? (We’re not that old. Really, we’re not.)
Comment by Maria | 11 Oct 2007 @ 7:50pm
This would be enough to reach target heart rate and then some!! After reading this the other day, I went for a walk and passed a young man very similar to the one you describe here - headphones on, dressed in khakis and a black t-shirt. Even though we passed within a foot or two of each other, he showed no signs at all of having seen another human being in his presence. Have to wonder what they are deep in tought in thinking!
Comment by Carrie | 12 Oct 2007 @ 2:43pm