Spooked

5:00 am.  The neighborhood is pitch black.  Every once in a while I see houses and shadows illuminated by a stray street lamp.  To my right is a long stretch of open space that reaches for at least 10 miles.  I run back there, but not when it is dark.  My dog, Tucker, loves these runs.  He runs by his nose, flaunting that he doesn't need his eyes to see.

Now three miles in, I'm getting used to this 8:00 pace.  I feel good and my arrogant dog doesn't even seem to be trying.  Up ahead the road dead ends.  I can follow the loop around to the right or take an entirely different direction to the left.  Of course I will go right.  I always go right.  It takes me further.

At least 25 feet from the intersection I see a flash of black.  It ran straight into the open space along the road that I am headed towards.  "Shit, Tucker.  What was that?"  He turns back at me and sniffs.  Clearly, he is unscathed.  I haven't been afraid of running the dark for a long time...okay, a year.  I haven't had a choice all winter so I've gotten used to it.  But that black thing was huge and fast and scary.  I go through the options of what it could be: a coyote, a bunny, a bird, a stray dog, a cougar, a werewolf...  I still have the option to go left.  I can gain those extra two miles somewhere else.  Somewhere there aren't terrifying black beasts lurking on the other sides of corners.

No, I'm freaking 30 years old.  I run marathons.  I have my dog that I've nicknamed "Mace."  I'm not scared.  I'm fearless.  Go right.

As I run towards the open space I see nothing there.  "Stupid.  Why are you so afraid of nothing?  Whatever it was just ran into the fields and it is long gone."  About 30 feet after the turn there are no more houses to my right.  The change is marked with one final fence.  Tucker slows as we approach.  He hesitates.  Fearless Mace, reduces his speed to a walk.  He stalks a shadow on the other side of the fence.

"Hmmmmmm.  Okay.  I'm okay.  I'm okay.  Tucker's got my back."  Still running, I peer around the corner and BOOM a reckless crow hurdles out, striking Tucker perfectly in the nose with it's spread wing and flies to the rooftop of a neighboring house across the street.  Yes, I screamed.  I shrieked so loudly I'm sure I woke up an entire neighborhood. 

Humiliated, but laughing, I didn't stop to see lights flicker on, I sprinted away as the satisfied crow watched from above.  Lesson learned, at 30 I am still slightly afraid of the dark, and crows.


~Roadburner

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