I’m done. Finis. Finito
I have given it over six months, that is enough ego pounding for one year. What am I talking about? I'm referring to the unnamed dating site from which, after reading the fine print I am perfectly able to unsubscribe but they still keep all my money, that’s what. What?
Maybe I should just take a break from looking at all my potential “matches” then go back in a couple of weeks and reassess my stupidity in signing myself up in the first place? After all, I AM still paying for it.
Or maybe I should just purchase a large mallet and hit myself in the head every time I click on the dating site link.
I won’t go into the hoary (and hairy) details, but suffice it to say that I have been very much less than satisfied with the turn out. Did you know that there are a lot of men in Idaho that need women? Idaho and Texas, with Florida bringing up a fast third. Who knew?
Better yet, who cares!
I should have known better. I have never been a dater. I have never been a woman that really knew how to flirt. I would venture to guess that there is a very large chance that I may be dating-autistic or dating-retarded, maybe even love-stupid. I know that those are not PC words to use, and, trust me, I have been searching for alternatives but if the shoe fits………perfectly, then put that sucker on your foot and march assertively away from the computer.
Thank God the shoe in question is a flip-flop and not a three-inch heel; the marching away is ever so much more dignified that way.
So, sadly, for those waiting for the Prince Charming story and happy ending: not happening.
I think that if I were a more normal size, things may have gone differently. I am a square peg that has been happily skirting around all the round holes for years with out feeling the need to sand off my edges and try to squeeze into them. Why did I think that just because I am a mature woman (looking for a mature man) the need to mold myself into an acceptable idea of womanhood in order to be chosen would be any different than when I was that lonely girl standing along the wall at the school dance?
It is all still a dating game and I am still its worse player.
***
I wrote a story. It follows. Maybe it will cheer you up. I doubt it.
I have given it over six months, that is enough ego pounding for one year. What am I talking about? I'm referring to the unnamed dating site from which, after reading the fine print I am perfectly able to unsubscribe but they still keep all my money, that’s what. What?
Maybe I should just take a break from looking at all my potential “matches” then go back in a couple of weeks and reassess my stupidity in signing myself up in the first place? After all, I AM still paying for it.
Or maybe I should just purchase a large mallet and hit myself in the head every time I click on the dating site link.
I won’t go into the hoary (and hairy) details, but suffice it to say that I have been very much less than satisfied with the turn out. Did you know that there are a lot of men in Idaho that need women? Idaho and Texas, with Florida bringing up a fast third. Who knew?
Better yet, who cares!
I should have known better. I have never been a dater. I have never been a woman that really knew how to flirt. I would venture to guess that there is a very large chance that I may be dating-autistic or dating-retarded, maybe even love-stupid. I know that those are not PC words to use, and, trust me, I have been searching for alternatives but if the shoe fits………perfectly, then put that sucker on your foot and march assertively away from the computer.
Thank God the shoe in question is a flip-flop and not a three-inch heel; the marching away is ever so much more dignified that way.
So, sadly, for those waiting for the Prince Charming story and happy ending: not happening.
I think that if I were a more normal size, things may have gone differently. I am a square peg that has been happily skirting around all the round holes for years with out feeling the need to sand off my edges and try to squeeze into them. Why did I think that just because I am a mature woman (looking for a mature man) the need to mold myself into an acceptable idea of womanhood in order to be chosen would be any different than when I was that lonely girl standing along the wall at the school dance?
It is all still a dating game and I am still its worse player.
***
I wrote a story. It follows. Maybe it will cheer you up. I doubt it.
The Woods
She turns and looks behind surreptitiously, bending to tie her shoe so that the man cannot see that she is concerned about him following her into the woods.
She often walks by herself on the rustic trails, cautious about who is up there with her. Sometimes she hears gunfire and sometimes shouting and can never be sure if she is completely safe. But so far, nothing frightening ever has happened. So far.
She turns and takes another look, still not sure about him. She lives close by; maybe she should just walk back home and admit she is afraid. Right now, she says to herself, just turn and go back through the gate and leave.
But she convinces herself that the man is harmless and, besides, who is he to scare her away from her own neighborhood? She has just as much right to walk up here as he does.
He looks ordinary. He even nods slightly and offers a crooked, toothy smile as she passes, as if reassuring her. But aren't those ordinary types the ones that end up being serial killers that cook their victims for Thanksgiving dinner? She asks herself, and then shakes her head to clear the thought.
He is older than her, maybe sixty-one or two, with a full gray beard and a camouflage beanie. He is tall and powerful looking as if he works out. She notices the bulge of his biceps as he fastens on a backpack and hoists a brown canvas sack over his shoulder.
And, he has a large sheathed knife hooked to his belt.
That knife is so obvious, as if he is showing off. That disturbs her. It is too early in the season for mushroom hunting, so she doubts he needs it for cutting them out of the ground. She can’t imagine why you would need a knife that large, if you were just walking in the woods.
He has two dogs with him, large muscular black Rottweilers, pulling and jumping against the leashes he has wrapped around his arm while he pulls on his jacket. Dogs usually don’t bother her when she hikes, even the kind that are nervous and charge and bark and don’t back down. She can always sooth them with her voice and walk by without having to worry about them running behind her and nipping at her heels.
But these dogs, much like the long knife that hangs from his side, seem to emit a danger signal. It’s their eyes, like they have reverted to the wild somewhere along the way: his eyes and the dog’s eyes.
She catches all this in the time it took to walk by him and nod as he locked up his car and leashed the dogs and she ducked under the locked metal gate of the clear cut trails and started up the hill. She caught the whiff of violence coming off of him and the dogs as real and cloying as the scent of the Scotch Broom that clogs the air on the higher trails.
When she takes the first cut off, instead of her usual route, she realizes that she is really scared; that her mind has already decided she needs to stay away from this man. By turning to the left on the first road she has options. She can wait and see which way he is going to go and, if he comes up the same road, she can quickly duck onto the off shoot trail that circles back to the sand pit that leads to the highway and home.
If he walks on by to one of the other trails, she can make her way to the top of the hill and cut through at the crest, watching and listening to see if he is also taking that trail from the other direction. If he does, she can head up another side trail and hide until he passes. She smiles with pride at her knowledge of the trails, and of her plan.
She has often played this game in her head when she encounters others out hiking, but this time is different, she feels desperate to avoid this man. She stretches around the tree she is sheltering behind in time to see the edge of his backpack and one of the dogs pass by, continuing on the main road away from the trail she is on.
It is only when she is well onto the top of the first hill, after seeing he and dogs pass, that she wonders why she just didn't turn around. Why didn’t she run down the hill and go back home? Is she playing a game?
It’s too late to go back now because she doesn’t know where he is. The blood drains from her head and she bends over to catch her breath. She looks up and down the hill, then waits, listening. She takes a big breath, blows it out, and starts walking much faster, trying to get to the top before he does.
“What have I done?” She says out loud, “He could be circling around in my direction from the other side right now.” She realizes that she really doesn’t know where he is, no matter how smart she thinks she is.
Isn’t it always the stupid move; the person that opens the door to find out what the noise was, the person the calls outside the back door 'who is it' into the fog of those scary movies? Isn't always that person, she thinks, who always gets grabbed by the monster because of their denial of fear, their wish to be in charge, which places them straight into the arms of the killer with the large knife?
“A big knife! Shit!” She startles herself at the sound of her own voice in the quiet of the woods.
I've got my mace, she thinks to herself. If he comes at me I will run first, then, if he is getting close I will blast him with the pepper spray. She pulls the canister from her pocket, suddenly realizing how small and ineffectual it looks. It is pink. She almost laughs.
“Okay.” She whispers, “I can do this.” But her knees are shaky from the fast climb and her heart is pounding. She usually talks to herself; chants a little, stops and looks at rocks and trees. She enjoys being in the woods alone though it took a long time for her to feel comfortable.
“Damn it!” She says out loud, “I am not going to let this jerk scare me out of my own woods!”
The little voice in the back of her head says stupid move lady and she sighs and looks back down the hill.
Now she is not sure. He could have doubled back and may be waiting behind her with knife out and duct tape at the ready to stop her screaming. Or he could be ahead of her. She feels stuck now, afraid to go on and afraid to go back.
At least I have my cell phone she remembers and pulls it out of her pocket to check the signal. Shit. Nothing. No signal. She has been telling herself to get a different company, but she is here now, panting at the top of the hill with no service and no weapon except a pink canister of mace. Shit.
She tries to visualize his face, wondering if he had any kindness in it or if she is just being paranoid. But she has always had a sixth sense about people, about their honesty, or lack of, and every time she didn’t listen to her gut she lived to regret it. Now she is confused. Did she see what she thought she saw? Were he and the dogs really threatening? What was it?
Get a grip. She says to herself. Think.
Okay. He was not much older than she was, maybe a couple of years, but he looked in much better shape. She has been walking these hills for twenty-five years but she knows that she could not outrun him. Did he look at her in a sinister way?
“I don’t know!” she says to the ground. “I don’t know what to do!”
She sighs again and decides to go off the road and sit up in the woods to listen for him. She is at the top of the hill now, where the path from the other side intersects the road she is on. She moves farther off the road and into the woods.
“Time to get smart. Time to hide" she whispers to no one.
Her coat is bright orange but it has a black lining, so she strips it off and turns it inside out to the black layer so she won't be so obvious, if someone is looking that is.
Now she thinks about indecision: how it makes you miss opportunities, how it makes you wish you had said something instead staying quiet. How it tricks you into passing the street you knew you should turn on, or driving past the house you knew was the one but couldn't decide.
Indecision; how it can put you in a bad situation that could be getting worse by the minute.
She is going too fast up here off the trail dodging tree stumps and blackberry vines that grab her feet and shoelaces. If she doesn’t slow down she is going to fall and hurt herself, then she really would be at his mercy. She stops and crouches down and listens but only hears her heart thumping wildly in her ears.
She closes her eyes and puts her head on her knees. What was that? She holds her breath as she snaps her head up. She moves only her eyes, frantically looking for what made the noise.
She can hear twigs snapping. Is it just the wind dropping leaves and needles around her? No. There it is again. She lets out her breath and lies flat behind a big crumbling cedar log that has has ferns and baby cedars growing out of it. She is afraid to move, making herself small, tucking herself mentally under as much of the log as she can while the footsteps, or the sounds that may have been footsteps, seem to fade away.
It is so dark and green here. There are places on the trails, mostly on the old logging roads, that open up to the sun. But up here at the top, tucked under a musty smelling log with gnats beginning to swarm around her mouth and eyes, it is shaded up high by the tall swaying firs, and down low by the salal and Oregon grape and huge ferns that grow wild in the Pacific Northwest. It should be peaceful but all she can think of is that no one can hear if she screams because she is so far from the road and because of the insulating wrapper of green that surrounds her now.
She wonders if she is making a fool of herself. What if she just gets up and saunters casually out of the woods and back down the hill like there is nothing wrong? Maybe she is far enough off the road that she can do it quietly, without being seen. Just get up and go. She listens again, hard, but doesn’t hear the sounds any longer. She slowly raises her head and peeks, first over the log, then behind her, then to both sides just as a Blue Jay branch hops above her head scaring her all over again.
Nothing. There is nothing, no one. She smiles at herself.
“Really, you have lost your mind,” she says to herself quietly, still looking around.
But she has never done this before, never hidden from a person like this. What frightened her about this guy?
“Wait.” she whispers, trying to think about what is nagging at her about the man. Something else. She has to remember.
The back of her neck suddenly grows cold and clammy and she feels like there is no air in the air around her. What was that she noticed hanging on the other side of his belt, the other hip? She tries hard to remember the shape. A familiar shape, it was...what was it?
Goggles! He had goggles hanging from the other hip. Her brain registered the shape because she rides a scooter and wears goggles with her half helmet to protect her eyes. But these were not goggles like she is used to. These were large and thick like binoculars and had some kind of strapping attached.
Then she gasps. The image of a man in a magazine with straps over his head and under his chin holding binoculars against his eyes, which must be night vision or infrared goggles, pops into her head.
Is he a hunter? She often hears the sound of rifles in the night during the spring and fall when there may be deer up in the miles of trails and figures the hunters must be using night vision goggles to see them.
Did she see anything that could be a weapon? She closes her eyes as if it will help her think harder. No, she remembers nothing but the backpack and the bag.
She opens her eyes wide. What if it is one of those rifles that breaks down into a smaller size? He could have had something like that. She tries to remember if she saw anything shaped like a rifle bulging in the duffle he threw over his shoulders.
I don’t know! I don’t know!
She tries to think about how long she has been up here and runs through the various trails that he might be taking and where he would be now, if she could just think straight. How long has she has been up here hiding next to this cedar nurse log in the soft musty earth? She looks up through the branches into the clear blue sky above her and wishes that she were a bird that could fly up there and be safe from things that walk on the ground.
Okay. Okay. She says to herself. I left the house at about 3:30 because I made lunch then sat and read for a while before deciding to walk. So, maybe 4:00 was when I saw him. And now she looks up again begging the sky to give her a clue. It is late May so the sun sets about 8:30. Yes, she thinks, it must be about 5:30, plenty of time before dark, don’t panic.
She figures she has been laying on the ground about an hour, not because of her calculations, but because she suddenly has to go to the bathroom so badly that she thinks about just going in her jeans, but doesn't.
She lifts her head again, hearing nothing, then pulls herself up by the log to a squat and lowers her pants, all the time swiveling her head around as the hot urine makes, what seems to her, a very loud noise hitting the forest floor. She squats lower, shakes a little and rolls to the side to pull up and fasten her jeans again. That's when she hears it. A dog barks, two dogs, maybe. And then she hears a man voice but cannot hear what he is saying.
She can’t tell if it is coming from the road she was on or coming through the woods behind her.
She hears the sounds of brush rustling and thinks she can feel the thud of feet and paws through the dense ground. The dogs have grown larger in her mind suddenly. Like something she has seen in the movies she puts her ear on the earth and decides that they are coming through the woods toward her.
She is grateful that she is laying down flat, hugging the log. They will not see her if she can just stay very still and they don’t get too close. Suddenly she remembers that she just deposited the strongest essence of her female self on the ground around her. The dogs will be on the scent of her urine no matter how quiet she is!
What to do?
All she wants to do is close her eyes and wish it all away. Make it all innocent again. Make this the crazy imaginings of a silly old lady who has too much time on her hands. But the barking is getting close and now she can hear the man calling them.
She thinks he is tracking her! She decides that she either moves now or lays there and waits for him to stand over her in triumph, the evil dogs scampering around him for a bit of her flesh.
She grabs the mace in her pocket with one hand and with the other pushes herself slowly around to the other side of the log, away from where she thinks the dogs and man are approaching. She slowly rolls away from the log and the female scent on the ground near it, pulls her legs under her and, in a crouch, makes her way towards the road, towards safety.
She is at the side of the road now; the sound of the dogs seems farther away. She slides down the small bank onto the gravel of the old logging road, stands and points herself back down the hill.
And then she runs. She runs so hard and fast that she is not aware of running. She feels like she is flying over the road. She doesn't care how much noise she makes now because she is heading down: down toward the gate and the road and houses and people and safety. If she can go fast enough she can cut through the side path and come out at the sand pit and go straight across it to get away.
She doesn't hear barking. She doesn't hear anything but her breathing. She thinks she is crying because her face is wet.
She can see the curve in the road that leads to the sand pit trail and then hears him behind her yelling.
"Hey lady! Where are you going so fast?"
She hears him laugh and yell at the dogs. "Get her boys!"
Oh my God, did she hear that right?
She turns onto the path to the sandpit and ducks under the willows and small alders that have fallen over the path and stumbles, slamming her shin into a stump. But she doesn't stop. Somehow she keeps running until she can see the rise where she has to shinny through two trees to gain access to the top of the sand hill and safety.
Now she can hear the dogs. They seem closer, barking in a more frenzied fashion. They are on the hunt and she is the prey. They are crashing through the brush behind her and she can hear the man urging them on.
She grabs a blackberry vine to pull herself up over the tree stump that blocks her way and feels the thorns rip into her hands, then scrambles up into the sunlight onto the top of the sand dune.
She doesn't even try to run down the rocky trail but jumps over to where the soft sand creates a slide of sorts and rolls all the way down to the bottom where she stands, coughing and spitting, then runs across the lower part of the dune and up over the edge of the pit to where she is finally looking down at the road just a few steps below her.
She hears him yell and looks back and he is standing at the top of the sand hill where she came out of the woods and onto the dune. He is waving something above his head.
He has a gun.
Is that a rifle?
She is not sure.
He lowers the object at her and points it right where she stands, the dogs jumping and growling around his legs.
She ducks down and jumps onto the road, stumbles and runs in front of a car that is coming around the bend. The car honks and she waves her arms but it doesn’t stop.
She can still hear the dogs barking and the man roaring with laughter, as she runs across the road and onto the driveway of the nearest house. She is too afraid to stay in the open and on the road in case he can still see her and reach her with a bullet.
Was that a gun?
She runs up the driveway lined with tall trees and thinks that he cannot see her now. Her house is so close. All she has to do is get past this house and the next and then cross the yard and the road and she can see her house.
Did he point a gun at her?
She runs and can’t breathe but she runs anyway, expecting to hear a shot any moment. Across one yard and then the next and through the wooden gate and up out of the trees and she can see her house across the highway.
There are cars and trucks zooming by and suddenly it all seems so normal but she can’t stop. She waits for a break and runs with what little bit of strength she has left across the road and then thinks to look behind her in case he has followed.
She cannot hear him. She cannot hear the dogs. She hears the cars that honk and she hears music and the sound of a lawn mower.
She runs until she is on her deck and at her back door.
She falls down to her knees and covers her face with her hands and sobs.
She turns and looks behind surreptitiously, bending to tie her shoe so that the man cannot see that she is concerned about him following her into the woods.
She often walks by herself on the rustic trails, cautious about who is up there with her. Sometimes she hears gunfire and sometimes shouting and can never be sure if she is completely safe. But so far, nothing frightening ever has happened. So far.
She turns and takes another look, still not sure about him. She lives close by; maybe she should just walk back home and admit she is afraid. Right now, she says to herself, just turn and go back through the gate and leave.
But she convinces herself that the man is harmless and, besides, who is he to scare her away from her own neighborhood? She has just as much right to walk up here as he does.
He looks ordinary. He even nods slightly and offers a crooked, toothy smile as she passes, as if reassuring her. But aren't those ordinary types the ones that end up being serial killers that cook their victims for Thanksgiving dinner? She asks herself, and then shakes her head to clear the thought.
He is older than her, maybe sixty-one or two, with a full gray beard and a camouflage beanie. He is tall and powerful looking as if he works out. She notices the bulge of his biceps as he fastens on a backpack and hoists a brown canvas sack over his shoulder.
And, he has a large sheathed knife hooked to his belt.
That knife is so obvious, as if he is showing off. That disturbs her. It is too early in the season for mushroom hunting, so she doubts he needs it for cutting them out of the ground. She can’t imagine why you would need a knife that large, if you were just walking in the woods.
He has two dogs with him, large muscular black Rottweilers, pulling and jumping against the leashes he has wrapped around his arm while he pulls on his jacket. Dogs usually don’t bother her when she hikes, even the kind that are nervous and charge and bark and don’t back down. She can always sooth them with her voice and walk by without having to worry about them running behind her and nipping at her heels.
But these dogs, much like the long knife that hangs from his side, seem to emit a danger signal. It’s their eyes, like they have reverted to the wild somewhere along the way: his eyes and the dog’s eyes.
She catches all this in the time it took to walk by him and nod as he locked up his car and leashed the dogs and she ducked under the locked metal gate of the clear cut trails and started up the hill. She caught the whiff of violence coming off of him and the dogs as real and cloying as the scent of the Scotch Broom that clogs the air on the higher trails.
When she takes the first cut off, instead of her usual route, she realizes that she is really scared; that her mind has already decided she needs to stay away from this man. By turning to the left on the first road she has options. She can wait and see which way he is going to go and, if he comes up the same road, she can quickly duck onto the off shoot trail that circles back to the sand pit that leads to the highway and home.
If he walks on by to one of the other trails, she can make her way to the top of the hill and cut through at the crest, watching and listening to see if he is also taking that trail from the other direction. If he does, she can head up another side trail and hide until he passes. She smiles with pride at her knowledge of the trails, and of her plan.
She has often played this game in her head when she encounters others out hiking, but this time is different, she feels desperate to avoid this man. She stretches around the tree she is sheltering behind in time to see the edge of his backpack and one of the dogs pass by, continuing on the main road away from the trail she is on.
It is only when she is well onto the top of the first hill, after seeing he and dogs pass, that she wonders why she just didn't turn around. Why didn’t she run down the hill and go back home? Is she playing a game?
It’s too late to go back now because she doesn’t know where he is. The blood drains from her head and she bends over to catch her breath. She looks up and down the hill, then waits, listening. She takes a big breath, blows it out, and starts walking much faster, trying to get to the top before he does.
“What have I done?” She says out loud, “He could be circling around in my direction from the other side right now.” She realizes that she really doesn’t know where he is, no matter how smart she thinks she is.
Isn’t it always the stupid move; the person that opens the door to find out what the noise was, the person the calls outside the back door 'who is it' into the fog of those scary movies? Isn't always that person, she thinks, who always gets grabbed by the monster because of their denial of fear, their wish to be in charge, which places them straight into the arms of the killer with the large knife?
“A big knife! Shit!” She startles herself at the sound of her own voice in the quiet of the woods.
I've got my mace, she thinks to herself. If he comes at me I will run first, then, if he is getting close I will blast him with the pepper spray. She pulls the canister from her pocket, suddenly realizing how small and ineffectual it looks. It is pink. She almost laughs.
“Okay.” She whispers, “I can do this.” But her knees are shaky from the fast climb and her heart is pounding. She usually talks to herself; chants a little, stops and looks at rocks and trees. She enjoys being in the woods alone though it took a long time for her to feel comfortable.
“Damn it!” She says out loud, “I am not going to let this jerk scare me out of my own woods!”
The little voice in the back of her head says stupid move lady and she sighs and looks back down the hill.
Now she is not sure. He could have doubled back and may be waiting behind her with knife out and duct tape at the ready to stop her screaming. Or he could be ahead of her. She feels stuck now, afraid to go on and afraid to go back.
At least I have my cell phone she remembers and pulls it out of her pocket to check the signal. Shit. Nothing. No signal. She has been telling herself to get a different company, but she is here now, panting at the top of the hill with no service and no weapon except a pink canister of mace. Shit.
She tries to visualize his face, wondering if he had any kindness in it or if she is just being paranoid. But she has always had a sixth sense about people, about their honesty, or lack of, and every time she didn’t listen to her gut she lived to regret it. Now she is confused. Did she see what she thought she saw? Were he and the dogs really threatening? What was it?
Get a grip. She says to herself. Think.
Okay. He was not much older than she was, maybe a couple of years, but he looked in much better shape. She has been walking these hills for twenty-five years but she knows that she could not outrun him. Did he look at her in a sinister way?
“I don’t know!” she says to the ground. “I don’t know what to do!”
She sighs again and decides to go off the road and sit up in the woods to listen for him. She is at the top of the hill now, where the path from the other side intersects the road she is on. She moves farther off the road and into the woods.
“Time to get smart. Time to hide" she whispers to no one.
Her coat is bright orange but it has a black lining, so she strips it off and turns it inside out to the black layer so she won't be so obvious, if someone is looking that is.
Now she thinks about indecision: how it makes you miss opportunities, how it makes you wish you had said something instead staying quiet. How it tricks you into passing the street you knew you should turn on, or driving past the house you knew was the one but couldn't decide.
Indecision; how it can put you in a bad situation that could be getting worse by the minute.
She is going too fast up here off the trail dodging tree stumps and blackberry vines that grab her feet and shoelaces. If she doesn’t slow down she is going to fall and hurt herself, then she really would be at his mercy. She stops and crouches down and listens but only hears her heart thumping wildly in her ears.
She closes her eyes and puts her head on her knees. What was that? She holds her breath as she snaps her head up. She moves only her eyes, frantically looking for what made the noise.
She can hear twigs snapping. Is it just the wind dropping leaves and needles around her? No. There it is again. She lets out her breath and lies flat behind a big crumbling cedar log that has has ferns and baby cedars growing out of it. She is afraid to move, making herself small, tucking herself mentally under as much of the log as she can while the footsteps, or the sounds that may have been footsteps, seem to fade away.
It is so dark and green here. There are places on the trails, mostly on the old logging roads, that open up to the sun. But up here at the top, tucked under a musty smelling log with gnats beginning to swarm around her mouth and eyes, it is shaded up high by the tall swaying firs, and down low by the salal and Oregon grape and huge ferns that grow wild in the Pacific Northwest. It should be peaceful but all she can think of is that no one can hear if she screams because she is so far from the road and because of the insulating wrapper of green that surrounds her now.
She wonders if she is making a fool of herself. What if she just gets up and saunters casually out of the woods and back down the hill like there is nothing wrong? Maybe she is far enough off the road that she can do it quietly, without being seen. Just get up and go. She listens again, hard, but doesn’t hear the sounds any longer. She slowly raises her head and peeks, first over the log, then behind her, then to both sides just as a Blue Jay branch hops above her head scaring her all over again.
Nothing. There is nothing, no one. She smiles at herself.
“Really, you have lost your mind,” she says to herself quietly, still looking around.
But she has never done this before, never hidden from a person like this. What frightened her about this guy?
“Wait.” she whispers, trying to think about what is nagging at her about the man. Something else. She has to remember.
The back of her neck suddenly grows cold and clammy and she feels like there is no air in the air around her. What was that she noticed hanging on the other side of his belt, the other hip? She tries hard to remember the shape. A familiar shape, it was...what was it?
Goggles! He had goggles hanging from the other hip. Her brain registered the shape because she rides a scooter and wears goggles with her half helmet to protect her eyes. But these were not goggles like she is used to. These were large and thick like binoculars and had some kind of strapping attached.
Then she gasps. The image of a man in a magazine with straps over his head and under his chin holding binoculars against his eyes, which must be night vision or infrared goggles, pops into her head.
Is he a hunter? She often hears the sound of rifles in the night during the spring and fall when there may be deer up in the miles of trails and figures the hunters must be using night vision goggles to see them.
Did she see anything that could be a weapon? She closes her eyes as if it will help her think harder. No, she remembers nothing but the backpack and the bag.
She opens her eyes wide. What if it is one of those rifles that breaks down into a smaller size? He could have had something like that. She tries to remember if she saw anything shaped like a rifle bulging in the duffle he threw over his shoulders.
I don’t know! I don’t know!
She tries to think about how long she has been up here and runs through the various trails that he might be taking and where he would be now, if she could just think straight. How long has she has been up here hiding next to this cedar nurse log in the soft musty earth? She looks up through the branches into the clear blue sky above her and wishes that she were a bird that could fly up there and be safe from things that walk on the ground.
Okay. Okay. She says to herself. I left the house at about 3:30 because I made lunch then sat and read for a while before deciding to walk. So, maybe 4:00 was when I saw him. And now she looks up again begging the sky to give her a clue. It is late May so the sun sets about 8:30. Yes, she thinks, it must be about 5:30, plenty of time before dark, don’t panic.
She figures she has been laying on the ground about an hour, not because of her calculations, but because she suddenly has to go to the bathroom so badly that she thinks about just going in her jeans, but doesn't.
She lifts her head again, hearing nothing, then pulls herself up by the log to a squat and lowers her pants, all the time swiveling her head around as the hot urine makes, what seems to her, a very loud noise hitting the forest floor. She squats lower, shakes a little and rolls to the side to pull up and fasten her jeans again. That's when she hears it. A dog barks, two dogs, maybe. And then she hears a man voice but cannot hear what he is saying.
She can’t tell if it is coming from the road she was on or coming through the woods behind her.
She hears the sounds of brush rustling and thinks she can feel the thud of feet and paws through the dense ground. The dogs have grown larger in her mind suddenly. Like something she has seen in the movies she puts her ear on the earth and decides that they are coming through the woods toward her.
She is grateful that she is laying down flat, hugging the log. They will not see her if she can just stay very still and they don’t get too close. Suddenly she remembers that she just deposited the strongest essence of her female self on the ground around her. The dogs will be on the scent of her urine no matter how quiet she is!
What to do?
All she wants to do is close her eyes and wish it all away. Make it all innocent again. Make this the crazy imaginings of a silly old lady who has too much time on her hands. But the barking is getting close and now she can hear the man calling them.
She thinks he is tracking her! She decides that she either moves now or lays there and waits for him to stand over her in triumph, the evil dogs scampering around him for a bit of her flesh.
She grabs the mace in her pocket with one hand and with the other pushes herself slowly around to the other side of the log, away from where she thinks the dogs and man are approaching. She slowly rolls away from the log and the female scent on the ground near it, pulls her legs under her and, in a crouch, makes her way towards the road, towards safety.
She is at the side of the road now; the sound of the dogs seems farther away. She slides down the small bank onto the gravel of the old logging road, stands and points herself back down the hill.
And then she runs. She runs so hard and fast that she is not aware of running. She feels like she is flying over the road. She doesn't care how much noise she makes now because she is heading down: down toward the gate and the road and houses and people and safety. If she can go fast enough she can cut through the side path and come out at the sand pit and go straight across it to get away.
She doesn't hear barking. She doesn't hear anything but her breathing. She thinks she is crying because her face is wet.
She can see the curve in the road that leads to the sand pit trail and then hears him behind her yelling.
"Hey lady! Where are you going so fast?"
She hears him laugh and yell at the dogs. "Get her boys!"
Oh my God, did she hear that right?
She turns onto the path to the sandpit and ducks under the willows and small alders that have fallen over the path and stumbles, slamming her shin into a stump. But she doesn't stop. Somehow she keeps running until she can see the rise where she has to shinny through two trees to gain access to the top of the sand hill and safety.
Now she can hear the dogs. They seem closer, barking in a more frenzied fashion. They are on the hunt and she is the prey. They are crashing through the brush behind her and she can hear the man urging them on.
She grabs a blackberry vine to pull herself up over the tree stump that blocks her way and feels the thorns rip into her hands, then scrambles up into the sunlight onto the top of the sand dune.
She doesn't even try to run down the rocky trail but jumps over to where the soft sand creates a slide of sorts and rolls all the way down to the bottom where she stands, coughing and spitting, then runs across the lower part of the dune and up over the edge of the pit to where she is finally looking down at the road just a few steps below her.
She hears him yell and looks back and he is standing at the top of the sand hill where she came out of the woods and onto the dune. He is waving something above his head.
He has a gun.
Is that a rifle?
She is not sure.
He lowers the object at her and points it right where she stands, the dogs jumping and growling around his legs.
She ducks down and jumps onto the road, stumbles and runs in front of a car that is coming around the bend. The car honks and she waves her arms but it doesn’t stop.
She can still hear the dogs barking and the man roaring with laughter, as she runs across the road and onto the driveway of the nearest house. She is too afraid to stay in the open and on the road in case he can still see her and reach her with a bullet.
Was that a gun?
She runs up the driveway lined with tall trees and thinks that he cannot see her now. Her house is so close. All she has to do is get past this house and the next and then cross the yard and the road and she can see her house.
Did he point a gun at her?
She runs and can’t breathe but she runs anyway, expecting to hear a shot any moment. Across one yard and then the next and through the wooden gate and up out of the trees and she can see her house across the highway.
There are cars and trucks zooming by and suddenly it all seems so normal but she can’t stop. She waits for a break and runs with what little bit of strength she has left across the road and then thinks to look behind her in case he has followed.
She cannot hear him. She cannot hear the dogs. She hears the cars that honk and she hears music and the sound of a lawn mower.
She runs until she is on her deck and at her back door.
She falls down to her knees and covers her face with her hands and sobs.