Or is this just Fantasy

A pair of Apaches circle overhead in formation, passing so close I can hear the thwokthwokthwok of their four blades cutting through the clouds.

A woman is pushing a baby stroller awkwardly through the door of the post office, a stack of packages balanced on top of it. She makes it through before I get close enough to grab the door for her, and she stops to hold it open for me. I smile and thank her.

The dog strains at its leash, tethered to the backseat of a badly-parked car, yelling through the open window with a look of absolute despair and worry. "Sit," I instruct it as I approach, and it does, snapping its mouth shut to face me. "Good dog. What a good dog." I offer it a gloved hand for inspection.

A stream of elderly people with senior center ID badges and a variety of mobility aids flow along the sidewalk. One of them is wishing everyone a wonderful day. In the middle of them is a young woman wearing a baby sling, and a blanket draped over the sling. The sling looked empty.

A block away, a man who does not acknowledge the existence of other people in his vicinity is pedaling his wheelchair backwards, up the middle of the busy business district street. Many people encourage him to come to the sidewalk; he only drifts closer to the center of the road. He doesn't look at me as I pass him.

The block next to my house is surrounded with orange cones, and at every corner of the intersection sits a truck with a crane dangling a claw full of rotting vegetation. All the storm drains are uncovered.

And when I wave to the landscapers cleaning up my neighbor's yard for the spring, one of them shows me a palm in response and hollers, "Rasta!"

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02 May 2014 14:02

Blend

A fine layer of fresh leaf growth covers the ground, hovering at shin height on invisible stalks. I rounded the corner and encountered a herd of doe, half standing above the undergrowth and half tiptoeing over the muddy path that cut through the middle. They froze when I approached, and stared unblinkingly at me; my neon pink shirt reflected in their eyes, a splotch of color growing larger until I was on top of the herd.

At the same moment, all of the split; most retreated back into the leafy cover that hid their hooves and not much more, while two dashed the other way and spilled down the embankment on the other side of the path. They almost made no noise. It's always the chipmunks that make all the noise, scuffling through rotting vegetation that no longer sees the sun.

Somehow, when the deer are still against the backdrop of the rest of the hillside, I cannot see them in my periphery.

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01 May 2014 18:51

Small Things

The St. Bernard held its head low and trailed behind, but kept its eyes on me. A stream of drool marked its path like a snail dragging along the pavement. The ground was covered in slugs coming out for breath after the rain, ones that were crushed by pounding rubber tread.

I'm waiting for a break in the clouds.

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30 April 2014 18:56

Lane Position

Ten vehicles passed me this morning, including one city bus and a work van with a 'Watch for Motorcycles' sticker. One buzzed me fairly close, but on a whole, the traffic I've encountered as of late has maintained a sane berth around me.

I've mostly curbed the habit of flipping off cars that are dicks to me on the road.

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29 April 2014 12:02

Watching

I'm still beating my path into the side of the hill, and with a daily crushing of the blades of grass, slowly, that path becomes evident. The tops and bottoms of the hill have been shorn, but the side is too steep for the common mowing unit; I push my way through the trimmings until my wheel bites into the tread it knows, and dare myself to ride down as slowly as possible. I hug the brakes and lean to keep from tipping forward, and the mothers dropping off their children for daycare flinch in shock when I finally come crashing over the curb in a scattering of toddlers and splashed mud.

An ambulance parks at the end of the road where my running trail exits the park system; I wonder who got hurt, until I notice that the drivers are just idling the truck next to an ashtray so they can smoke. I can't decide what's more ironic: the smoking ambulance driver, or the smoking fire truck driver.

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28 April 2014 17:43