Running with the Devil

Did she tell her roommates where she had gone? When would they notice her absence? Could she outrun him? How long would it take them to find her body in the bushes? Would her remains be eaten by a mountain lion? Is this guy joking? What did he did just say to me? My response was weird. I held my hands up as if I was being threatened at gunpoint. “Look man, I’m just going for a run here man, just a run. I just want to finish my run, man.” My excessive use of the word man, in retrospect, was also weird. Was I trying to make him my bro? Make him realize that I was really quite dude- like and not worthy of sexual assault? Or was I just being honest? I mean, I really was just going for a run, just trying to work out my own demons and angels and ideas and didn’t want to help some pervert with his. I whirled around and started to sprint up the hill. “Just one second, one more thing,” he pleaded. I turned around to see him standing there with his dick hanging out of his pants. “Do you like it?” the sinister directness of his question made my head spin. I was out of there. My legs, my beautiful, strong, trusty legs, hauled me as fast as they could to the end of the trail.

I have never, and probably will never, run as fast as I did that day. I ran to the end of the trail, to pavement, to houses, to people and to all things familiar. My face was wet from rain and my hands were shaking. Finally turning back, I saw the same tan stretch of dirt I had always seen, the same oak and the same eucalyptus. He was nowhere to be seen. I kept running, down the curvy road back to my house. “Fuck!” I screamed out loud. “Fuck!” Over and over and over, all the way home. I was no longer scared, I was pissed. Fuck that man for making me feel afraid, on MY trail, in MY city, in MY backyard. Fuck him for taking his weird pathos and dragging it from its dark corners and into MY life. Fuck him for making me scared, to this day, of running alone on trails.