Running away...

I like running. I used to hate it; back when I first started, it was the closest thing to torture I had ever experienced, because I just couldn't do it. I was happy if I could make it 10 minutes at a time without having to walk in between. I'm astounded I managed the discipline to do it regularly. Sometimes, when I thought I couldn't go any farther, I'd start counting steps. One...two...three...four... up to thirty. Then I'd start over. Again. And again, to keep the one Forbidden Thought from remaining stuck in my mind like a mouse in a bucket: "I can't do this anymore." Until I was home, I would count to thirty.

Anyways, I got better. After a year of running regularly I could make it about fifteen or twenty minutes out, short breather, and the same distance back. I was a cheapskate, bought crappy shoes, and gave myself leg cramps, inch-long blisters, and wierd foot disorders that only made the whole thing more complicated. But I stuck it through. I bought good shoes. I trained. And I trained. And I trained. Each time I got faster. I stuffed a 3-mile run and cool-down into a one-hour break (including changing and getting to class). I ran every morning before school. I still run just about every day, though no longer in the mornings, 'cause it's bloody dark.

So, there I am, running. Sneakers: check. MP3 player: check. Shades: check. I'm good to go. I dodge traffic, ducking between cars and busses at an immensely complicated light which wasn't functioning. Left down to the tower, turn around, past the bridge, up past the cathedral, almost to the other bridge, along the Rhine all the way.



Everyone and their goldfish and their goldfish's second cousin is out for a walk on nice days. Packs of mommies and babies, punk kids off to the skater park or to tempt fate on the bank, young couples not noticing that their public display of affection is both very public and very affectionate, elderly ladies, herds of Japanese tourists, covies of Nordic walkers looking like a tracksuited centipede (a hundred arms, legs and poles moving rhythmically), the homeless, the unwanted, musicians with guitars, kids with bottles of beer. You name it, it's there.

Where was I? Oh, yes, running. So, there I am, running. I'm pounding pavement, dodging retirees, headphones pounding mediocre texts to a mildly aggressive beat into my skull, inspiring me to run faster (if only to get away-- but from the boyband tunes the thing occasionally, randomly, throws out, it's not possible to run fast enough to escape).

Then I see him.

He's about as tall as my kneecap, curly brown hair, big brown eyes. The most adorable kid I have ever seen. Patiently, and with utmost concentration, closing in on a pigeon with a stick. As I zoom towards him I am fascinated. One step, the pigeon moves away. Another. He decides to charge and toddles off after the bird like an animated garden gnome who's been hitting the apple wine a bit too hard. The lazy bird doesn't take off, just skitters off towards another invisible bit of muck to pick at.



Take two: As I am more or less level with him, the kid tries again. I follow him with my eyes, waiting to see how it will all turn out. And just as he is about to finally poke the evasive avian with his chosen implement (what is the point of poking a pigeon with a stick anyways?), narrowly missing a very surprised dog and his rather bemused owner, I trip over my feet and fall flat on my face.